Two-Minute Date with Alessandro Nivola

Plopping down in a Brooklyn lunch spot, Alessandro Nivola couldn't seem more at ease. There's good neighbor Heath Ledger, he points out, and over here is Hope Davis — whom he lost a house to in a bidding war. Just a bunch of unassuming movie stars, keeping it real over coffee. "I want to write a Saturday Night Live sketch about an actor nobody's heard of who wears a hood and asks to be seated in the corners of restaurants,"he laughs.

To this point, Nivola could afford to be blasé about fame. Despite strong work in Face/Off, Junebug, and TNT's miniseries The Company, he isn't exactly a household face. But let's see if that changes with the chilling new remake of the Hong Kong thriller The Eye, where he plays a neuropsychologist helping a corneal-transplant patient (Jessica Alba) deal with the ghoulish images that flash before those pretty new peepers. With the red-hot international duo David Moreau and Xavier Palud (Them) directing, Nivola made certain this splashy role was still quietly textured. "We veered from the typical hunky doctor,"explains the — well, hunky Nivola, "so we turned him into a misfit who is confident in his job but insecure with who he is."

Not Nivola's issue: Offscreen, domestic bliss revolves around his wife, actress Emily Mortimer, and 4-year-old son, Sam. Of being a product of super-elite Exeter and Yale, he says, "I learned so many ways of faking it, and I've put each and every one of them to use in my work."