Wonderfully weird

James Urbaniak has made his name from playing intriguing oddballs. From his film debut in Hal Hartley's Henry Fool to his most high-profile role as cartoonist Robert Crumb in last year's American Splendor, he has made weirdness his calling card.

His latest role trades once again on that sense of otherness - but it also gives British audiences their first chance to see him firmly centrestage. Will Eno's monologue Thom Pain (Based On Nothing) arrives in Soho this week after a run in Edinburgh that saw Urbaniak win a Fringe First award for his commanding performance.

Urbaniak plays an actor on an empty stage. He tells you the story of his life - well, the headlines of his life. He acts like some avant-garde comedian. He is not happy. He has lost love. He is so far gone that he cannot even pretend to be a character.

'It is a portrait of a guy stripped down to his essentials,' enthuses Urbaniak, 40, supping a pint of Tennent's after a sold-out Edinburgh show. He is still half in performance mode, speaking loud enough that he can surely be heard in Glasgow.

It is not, he admits, mainstream entertainment. But beneath the stark presentation, he insists, is a story as rooted in human behaviour as Henry V. 'It's an old story. We grow and change. It's simple.'

Originally from New Jersey, now settled in New York, Urbaniak appeared Off-Off-Broadway for several years before being discovered by Hal Hartley. For seven years, he acted at night - playing everything from Romeo to Algernon in The Importance Of Being Earnest - and temped during the day. His last temp job came the week before he started filming Henry Fool - the film that finally got the interest of agents who had declared him too 'wicky-wacky', acting awards or not.

Steady work has followed, including a small part in George Clooney's film Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind. 'I love James Urbaniak,' Clooney told his agent - a sentiment he repeats for our benefit on the film's DVD commentary.

Aside from Clooney, though, more Americans would recognise Urbaniak for his voice than his looks. While he is in London he will record a Christmas special for The Venture Brothers, the cartoon series to which he lends his voice, not to mention the latest outing for his recurring role as a ragweed in a TV ad campaign for an allergy medicine.

Last year he was pipped to the part of Gareth in the American version of The Office by Rainn Wilson, despite getting his wife to cut his hair into a Mackenzie Crook-style pudding bowl for the audition. 'I'm not normally into that whole dressing-up-likeyour-character business,' he says, 'but for this I made an exception.'

Thom Pain is another labour of love. He and Eno flew to London in the spring - 'on our own coin' - for a rehearsed reading at Soho. It went well enough for Soho Theatre to give over September to the play after its Edinburgh run.