Wise Guy with no need to crow

The only similarity between Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe is that they are both damned good antipodean actors (Crowe from New Zealand and Pearce from neighbouring Australia) who commute by plane to work in Hollywood.

Oh, and in 1997 they were both, of course, in L.A. Confidential. Apart from that, they are like chalk and cheese. Guy Pearce doesn't work out, preferring stretching and yoga. He seems to quite enjoy nattering to journalists and lives quietly at home in Melbourne with Kate, his wife of five years, a dog and two cats rather than roaring on down to Malibu to romance his latest co-star (most recently, in Crowe's case, Meg Ryan).

Pearce laughs at how different they are. 'It's all about different energies. I'm not interested in the big summer blockbuster stuff. The whole saga and scenario that goes along with Hollywood, I don't feel I have the energy to get into that. I feel a lot more comfortable doing intimate type things. I have a little place in West Hollywood but I don't have the inclination to deal with uprooting and going to Los Angeles. I get to feeling so anxious there it drives me mad.

'I don't really feel connected to anywhere at the moment, but I know I am keen to feel connected at home again and become more involved with the Australian film industry. I guess I'm happier with a smaller career of work that grabs me.'

Like Memento, his new film, written and directed by Londoner Christopher Nolan (his first film was Following). Made in Pasadena, Los Angeles, Memento is about a man called Leonard Shelby, who is suffering from a rare case of memory loss. Pearce is Shelby, who looks like a cool blond Californian casualty, until you strip him down to find his body is tattoed with aide memoires and his pockets stuffed with polaroids of people with captions saying things like 'do not trust this man'. It is not easy to track down your wife's killer when you've lost your memory.

We met at the American Film Festival in Deauville, France, where Memento won the International Critics' Award, to talk about memory and other things. 'Since doing this film I've questioned the whole memory thing a lot more,' says Pearce. 'I have real paranoia about my own memory. I don't know if it's because my mother told me that my father, who passed away when I was just eight, had a real photographic memory.

'I wonder if perhaps I'm angst-ridden and that I should live up to that. I just know that when I'm in a group of people I go into anxiety mode and forget names, faces, everything. Yet somehow, luckily, I can remember my dialogue.'

Pearce was also pushing another film at the festival, the big studio picture Rules Of Engagement, co-starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, in which he plays a military lawyer. He remarks that he's disappointed with the film, as they changed the ending from the original script to please test audiences. It was not the film he set out to make. Hence his preference for smaller, more intimate films like Memento. 'Every now and again you get a script that is delightfully different and inspirational, but often it's given to a director who has made some iffy films and you don't quite trust the hands the script is being placed in. The Memento script is exactly as you see in the finished film, Chris (Nolan) being both writer and director. I was practically jumping up and down in my seat when I read it and when I saw it. And it is also my first film that goes backwards. See it yourself and see how it progresses!'

Pearce is an unflashy guy with gentlemanly manners and a neat physique packaged inconspicuously into jeans and a grey V-neck. No longer the blond Leonard Shelby, his hair is now short, dark and bitty from too many Napoleonic wigs being gummed on while playing the dastardly Fernand Mondego in his new film, The Count Of Monte Cristo, with Jim (Thin Red Line) Cavaziel in the title role. 'At the start of Monte Cristo you see me sort of young and fresh, but I turn into a pompous, pretentious dandy,' says Pearce. 'The period called for the pre-muttonchop hairdo look and varnished nails.' He flashes a hand with suspiciously long nails for a bloke. 'False, all false, but you'll notice the nails on my left hand, the "neck" hand, are shorter so I can still play the guitar, but I don't play very well at the best of times - even though I have a small studio at home in Melbourne where I record demos and write songs.

'In Australia, before Priscilla, I was best known as a musical theatre actor. Music is still very much part of my life. It'd be great to do a concert one day. I got a bit of practice last year playing a singer-songwriter who Lili Taylor falls for in an independent film called A Slipping Down Life. I could really understand that character, in contrast to some of the other films I've made.'