Face Time: Guy Pearce

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GUY PEARCE disappears into his many roles: a cheery drag queen in "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," a tattooed amnesiac in "Memento." In the new film "Traitor," he plays a handsome FBI agent chasing suspected terrorist Samir (Don Cheadle) halfway across the world. We talked to him about his real life — which is also halfway around the world.

» EXPRESS: You live in Australia. Is it difficult to live so far from L.A. when you're in the movie business?
» PEARCE: I don't feel the need, and I don't want to give up my family and friends at home. And I actually like going, "So, I've finished the job now; I can go home and actually forget about the industry and just get on with my everyday life."

» EXPRESS: I hear you write music?
» PEARCE: I'm not particularly great at anything. I mean, I sing. I like to sing, and I sing with a friend's blues band at home. And I write a lot of music at home and record stuff with friends. But it's one of those things: I'm sure if I wasn't an actor I would have pursued a career in music somehow, and I fell into acting and it just sort of seemed to work.

» EXPRESS: One of your most famous roles, in "Memento," is a character covered in tattoos. Do you have any?
» PEARCE: I don't. I'd really love to have a giant dragonfly on my back. I don't know why I don't do it. I wonder whether it'd just become a pest, you know, for work.

» EXPRESS: "Traitor" feels like an unusual mix of an action movie and a more thoughtful, political film.
» PEARCE: It feels like a studio film, but it's an independent film. If it were a big studio film, they probably wouldn't have been able to be as provocative. I'm sure the edges would have been trimmed off a little bit. So, it's kind of nice, actually. It sort of feels like one of those films from the '70s that's entertaining but is actually really thought-provoking as well.

» EXPRESS: It's very political. Did that have anything to do with your decision to do it?
» PEARCE: I think ultimately I choose films because you get to sort of investigate the emotional heart of somebody, or a group of people or whatever.

» EXPRESS: Is there anything you haven't done that you'd like to do?
» PEARCE: No. I mean, I'm just happy to wait and see and just keep reading stuff. I really like the idea that I don't know what's out there and the next thing you read could be really amazing. I don't get offered a bunch of stuff, and most of the stuff I do is more independent things that don't have any money, they're desperately trying to pull the money together. So, fingers crossed.

» EXPRESS: Since you sing and act, would you ever want to do a movie musical?
» PEARCE: I did a lot of musicals when I was a kid, like "The Wizard of Oz" and "Grease" and "Sinbad" and "Aladdin" and all sorts of stuff like that. So, on some level, I like the separation of those two things: I like straight acting and I like music for music's sake, but when it comes together, I just feel like I did it to death when I was a kid, so I don't feel a huge urge. I'm sure if someone came to me and said, "We're gonna do a remake of ..." — well, not even a remake, but if there was some original film that was a musical and I loved the songs, I'd do it. I'm sure if they hadn't made "Rocky Horror" or "Grease" or something and I had a chance, I'd do it.

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images