by Paul Fischer

There is something ironic about Guy Pearce's starring role in the sci-fi adventure The Time Machine -- the original classic film, made in 1960, also starred an Australian who was beginning to take Hollywood by storm: Rod Taylor. Pearce, who had literally just flown into Los Angeles from his homeland, laughs at the irony. "Maybe it's something about Australians not wanting to be happy with where they are and their insecurity complex is the thing that drives them," he notes. It was the original George Pal film that partially led to Pearce's decision to step into Taylor's shoes, he adds. "Being such a fan of the original was certainly a factor, as well as getting back to the child within oneself was also something I found quite appealing, really, because this is not normally the kind of film that I would be drawn to doing."

Though Pearce had never read H.G. Wells' novel, he was drawn to the themes of the 1960 version of the story, responding to "the notion that as human beings you tend not to want to concentrate on the present moment. We would always rather fantasize about the future or dwell on the past, or actually allow ourselves to feel anxious about what possibly could happen in the future, or dwell on the sort of negative things that have happened in the past. That's just our ego trying to create some sort of identity for ourselves. We allow guilt and fantasy and all those kinds of things to identify us, when really we would do ourselves a much better service if we could actually just exist in the present moment." Guy concedes that this is a philosophical perspective, that he probably didn't have when he was 8 years old watching the original, "but that whole notion of turning those fantasies that we have about wanting to go somewhere in the future, or wanting to go into the past into a tangible prospect, is just the most fascinating concept in the world." Pearce says that when The Time Machine script came along, "it just brought back a great deal of memories for me in regard to what affect it had on me when I was a kid. I guess I sort of had to think about what affect this film would have on kids in this day and age, and perhaps kids in the future as well. It comes from the child within me, and I guess that allowed me to let go of some of the precious aspects that I have whenever I usually go to make a film, and go, "Well, this could be fun, why not?' "

Pearce, who was sporting a blonde-bleached hairdo from a recent stage production of Sweet Birth of Youth, sees it important to be as creatively divergent as possible, be it returning to his theatrical roots, starring in independent films such as last year's critical favorite, Memento, or indeed switching to bigger studio films like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Time Machine. "I always like to think that I could be as credible in any role that I do, whether it's a bigger studio picture or an independent picture. Essentially what I'm drawn to is a story and what the character's experience is throughout that story, and whether or not it's a bigger film or a smaller film doesn't really play into the picture to me in choosing a film as such. I mean it was definitely an interesting decision for me to choose to do Monte Cristo and Time Machine. I was aware, obviously, that they were big studio films, but Monte Cristo is a classic and Time Machine is a kind of unusual studio picture in some ways." Pearce wants to continue being as diverse in his choices as possible, although he admits that he will "probably run out of things to do and end up finding some little bland road down the middle somewhere", he concedes laughingly. "But maybe if I do, that'll be the time to stop."