By Anderson Jones

Kip Pardue defines the term "hot young actor." Not only is he photogenic, but with several new films opening soon, including his gay turn in Loggerheads, he's prolific.

Kip Pardue probably has no idea when his next movie...opens. But you can't blame him. Since a star turn in Driven opposite Sylvester Stallone, Kip has been sharpening his acting chops under the radar in much smaller, independent fare -- which means he's been trying to scruff up his blond, blue-eyed, Ivy League good looks just like Johnny Depp before Pirates of the Carribean. This summer, he tried goofy rock star in Undiscovered and now he stars in Loggerheads as a gay, wayward adopted son. Then, in no particular order, watch for Kip in Chasing Fate, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, in J.T. Leroy's The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, Mister Lonely, Farewell Bender, and, finally, next year in the highly anticipated Glamorama, Roger Avary's adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' seminal novel about the fashion industry and, well, terrorism. We talked to him about his short-lived modeling career,...playing gay, and trying hard not to be famous.

IN: When did people start telling you that you should be in pictures?

For me, it was literally like a joke when someone said, "Why don't you model?" And I didn't think anything of it and sure enough he was serious. I didn't put that much into a modeling career because I was in college at the time. And I was about to graduate from college [Yale] and I didn't have anything to do so I was going to move to Paris and try to be a model. But, at that time, someone called and asked me if I wanted to be an actor instead. It was an easy choice. It's one of those gigs where everybody bags on it and says, "It's just modeling." Hey, I don't know of many jobs where you can stand still and earn $3,000 a day.

I think the real question in your industry is: Do you want to be a movie star or do you want to be an actor? Are you going to go after fame or follow your passion? Some people's passion.

Éis to be famous. It's fine. It's a scary thing to me personally. It catches up to you. People love to look at certain people for a lot of different reasons, because they're beautiful because they're familiar because they were good in a movie a long time ago, but, in this day and age, the market is so saturated with beautiful people that if you don't put in the time to make yourself better as an actor and better as a person then you will fade away.

Was there a specific offer that you refused to stay true to your craft even though it could pay for a beach house in Malibu?

There was a point in my career where things were really happening where I was sort of "that guy." There were two movies that I was getting offered a lot of money to do. I remember even saying, "We don't need to talk about these movies anymore." And they both came out and did fine. Neither one of them would have furthered my career in retrospect. They would have helped my bank account and my foreign value which is so important now. But you know what? I got to make three movies in that time and I'm really happy with the choices that I made. All these kids who are my age talk about how they want be Johnny Depp. [Pause.] I want to have Johnny Depp's career.

No one wanted to have the career of Johnny Depp before The Pirates of the Caribbean.

There were 10 years there where Johnny was making the craziest movies. You pay your dues to get to that point and he was following his heart and he was going what he wanted to do and that's what I've been doing. And you know me, I haven't had that success, but I'm making these crazy, weird movies and nobody wants to be in them and nobody's seeing them but it'll pay off at some point. It's already paid off to me and that's all that really matters. I'm building a career of a smart moves and smart movies that will allow me to open up a movie and not embarrass himself.

Loggerheads is ostensibly about adoption, but it's really about acceptance and understanding.

It's about what's called in the adoptive world "the adoptive triad." I play the son who was given up for adoption. My biological mother is one part of the triangle and then my adoptive mother is the other. Tess Harper and Chris Sarandon play my adoptive parents and Bonnie Hunt plays my biological mother and we follow those three separate stories in the film.

Before I saw it I thought you were trying to adopt a child with another man!

My character is raised in a home where my lifestyle -- because I'm gay -- isn't looked upon positively. So, he has no choice but to leave and he ends up getting into a relationship. And it's about these three people finding themselves.

Because you were put up for adoption is your character trying to fill a hole in his life?

I think everyone who's adopted goes through a tremendous amount of abandonment issues and I think searching for who you are when you come from that environment is the most important flight that you can go on. You also have to realize your adoptive parents have different genes and a different make-up from you and it explores all those things -- about the power of blood and relationships with friends. It's a very powerful movie and the performance that I'm most proud of.

You're very -- how they say -- "straight acting." But you do wear a wife-beater.

We have a loving relationship. I don't walk around with those gay stereotypes. Michael Kelly, who plays my boyfriend, and I both decided to play it as two men who happen to be gay. It's not lispy. It's not completely over the top, it's just two guys who fall in love. It's a beautiful love story. And even the straightest of men -- if they have a child -- they'll relate to this movie. It's powerful.