Stepping out of character

He is one of Hollywood's best-known character actors, but with the spoof biopic 'Walk Hard' and his new comedy, 'Step Brothers', John C Reilly is making the leap to leading man. He talks to Donald Clarke

THROUGHOUT HOLLYWOOD'S history a great many fine actors have shouldered the burden of being identified as That Guy. "Hey, I really like That Guy who always gets to beat up Tom Cruise." "What's the name of That Guy who usually plays the bartender in John Ford movies?" You know the sort of fellow I mean.

The common wisdom is that character actors - and Those Guys are always so identified - may not get onto as many magazine covers as the real stars, but they are that bit more durable than Flash Harry and his chums.

Sitting on a big chair in a posh Dublin hotel, John C Reilly, current king of the character actors, expresses some doubts.

"People always say that," he sighs. "John, you're a character actor. You'll work forever. It just doesn't feel like that. Mind you, feeling insecure about myself has, maybe, served me well. It's kept me working."

In truth, it's some time since Reilly has been a mere That Guy. The curly-haired, knobbly-featured Irish American did, it is true, lurk behind various Cruises and Streeps for over a decade without being noticed by the newspapers. But, from 1997, the year Paul Thomas Anderson cast him in Boogie Nights, Reilly has become one of the few character actors any half-serious movie fan can name. In the last decade he has brought vulnerability to assorted Everymen in films such as The Thin Red Line, Gangs of New Yorkand Anderson's Magnolia.

Yet still he refuses to accept the existence of the Character Actor Insurance Plan.

"I guess that may have been true in the old days of the studio system," he says in his familiar, slightly mournful voice. "Guys like Walter Brennan or Sydney Greenstreet could, maybe, work steadily. Now, if you are not bringing people to the box-office they are not interested. That's why a lot of actors are now drifting towards cable TV." At any rate, Reilly has, over the last two years, seen his career lurch in a somewhat unexpected direction. Reilly, now 43, often rustled up a few laughs in his character roles, but you would never have referred to him as a comic actor. In 2006, however, he proved to be one of the funniest things in the NASCAR comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Last year he delivered a first-class performance as a hilarious amalgam of Johnny Cash, Jim Morrison, Brian Wilson and others in the underrated Walk Hard. From this weekend we can catch him playing opposite Will Ferrell as one of two superannuated teenagers in Step Brothers.

"I did not decide that change of career," Reilly explains. "It just happened that way. People who are not actors have a very different perspective on our lives. You are at the whim of opportunities. It's rarely a conscious decision to do something else. Things just work out that way."

Step Brothersfinds Reilly's character, still living with his dad, greatly inconvenienced when pop marries a woman with a similarly indolent middle-aged dope for a son. The film offers good, old-fashioned dumb fun, but Reilly believes it also catches a certain aspect of the zeitgeist.

"Kids do have different relationships with their parents these days," he says. "My dad was very definitely an adult. He had no interest in wearing the clothes I wore or in being cool. He was an adult and he was proud of being an adult."

Mr Reilly Senior ran a linen supply company in a working-class section of Chicago's South Side. As the fifth of six children, the young John had to shout to make himself heard. Many profiles of the actor attempt to portray his neighbourhood as a dangerous, Dickensian brawling-ground. Was it really a rough spot?

"Well, if you've ever been to South Boston or the South Side of Chicago you'll know that the Irish-American areas can be pretty tough. Now I've travelled and I have no illusions that it was as bad as Rio or wherever. But it was a lot tougher than I'd have liked it to have been." In this unlikely environment, John C Reilly somehow developed an interest in acting. While other kids were sharpening their blades, he was honing his singing voice for the next musical or rehearsing his soliloquy for an upcoming Shakespeare production.

"I was very lucky," he explains. "The Chicago Park District had places to go and take drama classes. I don't know what would have become of me if I hadn't had that outlet. There were a lot of ways to get into trouble in my neighbourhood. I also have to credit the Christian Brothers. I was drinking and smoking when I was 12. But then I had to go to this school that was some ways from home. It had more stringent academic standards and it instilled a degree of respect. So, yeah, I do have to credit the Christian Brothers."

Reilly says that he doesn't know what would have become of him if he hadn't become an actor. I get the sense this is not just a glib quip. Has he ever seriously pondered where he might have ended up? "I do know examples of guys who are still there," he says sadly. "It is not such a happy place to be. Then again, I could have been a lawyer. I have always been pretty good at arguing."

Reilly was, indeed, lucky with his schoolteachers and lucky to encounter a helpful public programme. He was also fortunate to come of age as an actor in a city with - after New York - the second most healthy theatre scene in the US. (Proud Chicagoans might object to only being placed in second position.)

When Reilly graduated from DePaul University acting conservatory, David Mamet was at the height of his powers and the Steppenwolf Company, home to John Malkovich and Gary Sinise, was busy consolidating its legendary status. With his hangdog features and regretful voice, the young actor was ideally suited to the outsider ethos of the city's theatre practitioners.

"I guess Chicago theatre was experiencing a kind of perfect storm," he says. "What really makes Chicago different - the reason Steppenwolf and others worked so well - is simply that people go to the theatre there. It is cheap enough to go and people are sufficiently interested for you to support good work. Chicago has the sophistication of a big city, but the theatre scene doesn't have the aggression you find in New York or Los Angeles."

Reilly goes on to explain that, in Chicago, you felt part of a theatrical community, rather than one brawler in a big professional squabble. Nonetheless, for all the charm of that scene, he does admit that, from time to time, he feared that he would not be able to make a career out of acting. At one particularly fallow point, he told his father that he was considering throwing it all in to become a carpenter.

"My dad rarely stopped in his tracks and he rarely made eye contact in conversation," he says. "But he just stopped and said, 'We have enough carpenters in the family. Stick with what you are doing.' That impressed me. Later my mother said: 'It's sad. Your father could never admit that he wanted to be an actor.' You talk about character actors. There was a guy who was a walking encyclopaedia on that subject."

REILLY CLAIMS THAT he never for a minute imagined that he would have a career in cinema, but somehow or other he caught the eye of Hollywood and, in 1989, secured a significant supporting role alongside Sean Penn in Brian De Palma's Vietnam drama Casualties of War. Penn was sufficiently impressed by his co-star to warn him that stardom was assured and that limousines and champagne were on the way.

As things worked out, Reilly's advance on success proved to be a more gradual business, but Casualties of Wardid change his life. Not only did it lead to a consistent series of movie roles - no fewer than two a year, he reckons - but it was on that film that he met his wife. Alison Dickey, now a producer, was, at that stage, working as Sean Penn's personal assistant. Now there's a job that might have its challenges.

"In some ways. I guess so," he says. "When she was working with him he was still with Madonna. So that was kind of hectic." Married in 1992, John and Alison still live happily just outside Los Angeles. Remaining together for so long is quite an achievement in Hollywood.

"Yeah, you should get a platinum disc for it in this business," he says. "But I make sure to stay at home a lot. Oddly, what's made that more difficult in recent years has been doing this - the press. In the past I'd shoot a film and the media couldn't give a shit about me. We had this mutual lack of interest."

It will be another few days before he makes it home. Following our interview he was due to travel to Berlin and then return to Dublin to receive an honour from the Philosophical Society in Trinity College.

"Do I have to say something really intelligent at that?" he says. Not really. Just be polite.

"That's shouldn't be a problem. I can do polite and I think I can do sincere." Yes. I can vouch for that. That Guy seems a pretty decent piece of work.

• Step Brothersopens in cinemas nationwide tomorrow