by MATTHEW HAYS

Matt Dillon is as surreally handsome in person as he is on screen. He's sitting down in a Toronto pub, gulping back some mineral water, and poring over some of the reviews just after the premiere of his directorial debut, City of Ghosts, at last year's Toronto International Film Festival.

"I was interested in an exotic story," Dillon says, explaining both his setting for the film (Cambodia) and the story's inspiration. "I started working at such a young age as an actor, so I tend to see the world in movies. Everything looks like a scene in a movie to me. And Cambodia struck me as a such a cinematic place. It's beautiful, but it's filled with such a sense of inner conflict. I wanted to combine a nightmare with a fairy story, and this seemed the place to do it."

Dillon was hit with the screenwriting bug after a visit to South Asia in '93, and then decided he liked the idea of a duplicitous con man heading off to Cambodia, desperately seeking out his mentor, who'd gone AWOL after a police investigation into their elaborate insurance scam. "I read a piece in the Herald-Tribune that suggested that a large number of the world's most wanted criminals were hiding in Cambodia. Due to their lack of extradition treaties, Cambodia had become a haven for criminals escaping prosecution - this was according to Interpol."

Dillon chose to cast himself in the lead, playing a con man in limbo, set adrift when his criminal father figure (James Caan) skips the U.S. to escape the long arm of the law.

During its weaker moments, City of Ghosts feels a bit confused. But at its very best, Dillon has managed to infuse the film with a good deal of Big Sleep-esque confusion, instilling in us (the audience) the same sense of mystery and confoundedness felt by the protagonist. With this step in his career, the actor (who, I would argue, is far too often underrated) is committing a cliché: he's saying he always wanted to direct. He's also breaking a rule: don't direct yourself in your directorial debut.

"Yeah, I know," he offers. "I always used to say that I didn't want to direct myself as an actor. I felt I knew the material well enough to handle it. As for directing, when I tossed the idea around of getting someone else to do it, a friend said to me, ‘Are you fucking out of your mind? You're going to let someone come in and touch this? You'll go bananas!' They were right. I don't think I would have been able to give this up. I wanted to make the movie from the ground up."

Dreamy influences

Dillon cites two of his major influences as William Friedkin and Carol Reed. "Friedkin has a directness in his work that I love. Reed was just a great master. The way he filled the frame in The Third Man or Odd Man Out. He was never self indulgent; you have to watch the films several times to pick up on everything. I love that - the richness of his filmmaking."

And the directors Dillon has actually worked with? "Gus Van Sant has been a big influence," he says without pause - not so surprising, considering what are arguably Dillon's finest performances (in Drugstore Cowboy and To Die For) are in Van Sant pictures. "I like directors who feel that there's room for dreams within their movies. Some screenwriting teachers would say that's a bad thing, but I hope to put a dream sequence in every movie I ever direct. Those dreams-within-movies directors would include Francis [Ford Coppola] and Tim [Hunter]."

Finally, it must be asked of Dillon: does he feel his pretty face and sex-symbol status have held him back, both in terms of being taken seriously as an actor and director? "You know what? I don't do it for that. I make movies because I love doing it. I can't concern myself with the way people react to me. I try to think about what I can bring audiences that they don't already have. It was Bunuel who once said there's no point in making a movie unless you're doing something new. I'm interested in doing those things that are new."

City of Ghosts opens Friday, May 30

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