hances are, you know Billy Crudup's name, but not his face. You've seen his name roll by in the credits of 12 films in the past five years. Crudup's face, however, seems to disappear behind each new character he plays. Recently, the chameleon-like actor has morphed
himself into an Olympic track star in Without Limits, a blue-collar stud in Inventing the Abbotts and a gentle junkie in Jesus' Son. In fact, the title of his biggest film to date - Almost Famous - could very well describe Crudup himself.

  Now, Crudup (pronounced "crew-dup") will transform
himself once again, in his latest film, Charlotte Gray, directed by Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career, Little Women). Based on Sebastian Faulks' best-selling novel, Charlotte Gray tells the story of a young Scottish woman (Cate Blanchett) who joins the French Resistance in the Second World War in order to rescue her Royal Air Force lover, who's lost in France. Along the way, Charlotte is drawn into a passionate affair with a resistance fighter (Crudup). While in occupied France, Charlotte gets caught up in the resistance movement and tries to save two Jewish boys from the Nazis.
actors
Cate Blanchett
Billy Crudup
Michael Gambon

director
Gillian Armstrong

locations
South of France
London, U.K.
outtake
Billy Crudup's
parents divorced when he was in
junior high, then remarried - each other - when he
was in high school, then later divorced for a second time.

  Starring as a romantic lead opposite Cate Blanchett could finally propel Crudup into the Hollywood big leagues. He had his chance once before, when he reportedly declined an offer to audition for the lead in the blockbuster Titanic. "A lot of us guys were called in to read for the role of Jack," he told one reporter. "I just didn't show any enthusiasm. It was an honest reaction. It's not the kind of film I want to be involved in."

  Crudup takes his acting very seriously, probably because it's been one of the constants in his life. Born in 1968 in Manhasset, New York, he was raised in Texas, North Carolina and Florida and attended more than 10 schools over the years. "You develop the ability to adapt," he says. "That may be one reason that people begin to think about playing characters or accessing different parts of their personality."

  Crudup did just that; adapting to each new location by acting in school pageants and entertaining family and friends with his impersonations. "I was a goofball, a ham, the class clown," he recalls, "which probably explains my need to perform. Hey, audiences are lots bigger than classrooms."

  He went on to study drama, earning his Master of Fine Arts from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 1994. A year later, he'd won an Outer Critics Circle Award for his first Broadway role, in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. His next stage role, as the strapping cowboy, Bo, in Bus Stop, would introduce Crudup to his long-time girlfriend, Mary-Louise Parker (Fried Green Tomatoes).

  "Mary-Louise is a tremendous influence on me," he has said. "She takes the time day-to-day to watch people, to listen to people. To understand why people do things. And to me, a great actor is someone who's incredibly compassionate."

  But now that Hollywood has discovered Billy Crudup, will he be able to fend off the trappings of fame and continue to lose himself in his characters, as he does in Charlotte Gray? Crudup certainly hopes so. "My occupation is to make people believe that I'm somebody else," he says. "I don't want people to know too much about me. Fame makes my job just that much harder."

- Deborah Smyth