Though I’ve spoken with numerous actors during my career writing about film, no one else has been able to verbalize so many of the underlining and unwritten givens of the trade as Jane.

Jane is reclining in his chair, popping Teddy Grahams into his mouth as we speak. Though he doesn’t speak softly, it’s easy to see how one could mistake his thoughtful baritone for being just that. Reflective seems to describe his demeanor far more accurately. "When I was shooting The Last Time I Committed Suicide, I played Neil Cassady," Jane says. "Cassady was a best friend and muse to Jack Kerouac and Allan Ginsberg. He was an incredibly vibrant literary character of the Beat Generation. He had an energy about him that was frenetic and lustful and extremely vibrant and alive." Jane eyes me from his seat and continues. "I found that the director wanted to film a lot of the action in that frenetic, hand-held style."

Before I have a chance to ask exactly how frenetic director Steven Kay wanted his camera, Jane is telling me. "We tied the camera to a bungee chord and bounced the camera around," he says, with the hint of a smile on his face. "I found that when the camera was doing that, for me to be doing my thing on top of that became redundant."

Jane cocks his head and questions, "Do you know what I’m saying?" I nod my head in the affirmative. "There’s a certain relationship between the actor and what the camera is doing depending on what you want to convey," Jane states. "Film is a camera-oriented medium. Where you put the camera and how you light a scene will tell you much more about a scene than the actor will be able to do with his face and body."

It’s a most unusual take on the art of acting because Jane is playing down his own personal star power and championing the work of the filmmaking team. He’s not belittling actors in the least and he is quick to point this out. "This is not to take away from what the actor does, because he does a lot" he says, crunching another Teddy Graham. "But, it’s more often what the actor doesn’t do that allows the camera, the mood and the setting to place the viewer in the proper mood, mindset and viewing intensity." Jane chuckles and says, "I often tell my director that if he puts the camera in the right spot, then I don’t have to do anything. The story is told."

"You watch The Godfather," Jane says. " You see the flow, the floating tracking shots with deep focus and blurry foreground images passing through the frame. You’re instantly captivated by the conspiratorial, secretive, shadowy feeling of the movie. Al Pacino doesn’t have to do anything other than to talk in a low voice to convey exactly what we need to hear." He smiles, "If the scene was brightly lit or the camera was a little bit jerky, or the camera’s a little too close, you’re overstating the point. Now you’re just looking at the hair on the actor’s lip or something. It’s gaudy and boring at the same time."

There is a flip-side to Jane’s argument though, which he candidily points out. "However," he begins, pausing slightly for dramatic effect, "when the director is fucking up and missing the moment, which is about 85% of the time in my experience, then the actor has to step in and do something to keep it going." Jane shrugs and says in way of explanation, "That’s why all actors want to work with great directors; when we do, we don’t have to do anything."

Tackling an incredibly wide assortment of roles during the last five years including that of an action hero (The Punisher), a romantic lead (The Sweetest Thing), an American Legend, Mickey Mantle (*61), a dim-witted detective (Under Suspicion) among others, Jane is anything but typecast. Ironically, the one trait that most people associate with Jane, the shock of nearly platinum blonde hair that he sports in The Velocity of Gary, Under Suspicion, *61, Deep Blue Sea and parts of Stander isn’t even his real hair color. "This is the real color," he says, jutting a finger at his now brownish-blonde hair.

Jane’s ability to smoothly and believably morph in and out of so many different character types is positively amazing. Most critics are hard pressed to come up with a bigger star who has less baggage attached to his name than Jane. And, believe it or not, Jane’s at it again, completely embodying the lead role in his latest film, Stander.

•  •  •  •  •

Based upon the true story of South African police detective Andre Stander (after whom the film is named), Stander is a surprisingly cohesive movie, especially for a project that would fall under the heading of a biopic. Most of this portion of Stander’s success should go to director Bronwen Hughes (Forces of Nature)and rookie screenwriter Bima Stagg for crafting a film that had a singular vision complete with rising and falling action. This is even more impressive when you realize that Hughes and Stagg were handcuffed by the events that actually transpired. "We were very faithful to the story," Jane says. "Everything that happens in the movie is something that Andre did."

All ‘Andre did’ was become the most notorious bank robber in African history during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. When asked if there was much inflation of the storyline or character drama to hyper-stimulate the project ala Monster or A Beautiful Mind, Jane is blunt. "It was really nothing like that," he states simply. "All the unbelievable stuff is stuff that we learned Andre really did. We just worked it into the screenplay."

The unbelievable stuff that Stander pulled off consisted of robbing multiple banks in one day, once returning to a bank he had robbed earlier in the day when he saw on the news that the bank had a ‘secret’ safe he’d missed, robbing a bank next door to the office of the task force working to catch him, and breaking into prison while on the lam in order to free a friend of his. Stander made a habit of hopping on planes during his lunch hour to rob banks in different parts of the country and, as Jane points out, before turning to crime, Stander was also the youngest captain on the Johannesburg police force

"He was an amazing man," Jane says. "And nothing was made up. This was how he did it." If anything, Jane tells me, there was a significant amount of material about Stander that didn’t go into movie.

"He was a gentleman," Jane says of his character. "He was actually admired by the people he used to rob." Jane makes a subtle comparison between Stander and Robin Hood, but stops short because Stander kept the money he stole. "He wasn’t into charity, that’s for sure," Jane laughs. "People interpreted his actions as being political, this or that, but he was a bank robber. He said, ‘Fuck this.’ So he’d rob a bank."

The initial inspiration for Stander’s transformation from exemplary detective to wanted criminal is slightly more complex than the ‘fuck this’ style of bank robbery that the character ultimately begins to employ.

Working crowd control at a huge protest of apartheid in one of the worst slums in Johannesburg, Stander is ordered to start shooting the protesters when the gathering turns into a small-scale riot. Upset at his government’s continued mistreatment of blacks and the inordinate amount of police man power that is spent dealing with the effects of apartheid, Stander bursts into a local bank one day and makes off with a handful of cash; it’s supremely easy because all the police have been called away to deal with a riot on the other side of the city. The first robbery is definitely an act of defiance for Stander; he gives the entirety of his ill-gotten gains to a beggar on the street. As he pulls more and more heists though, his noble motives begin to crumble.

Jane smiles at the mention of this. It hits at the core of the way he chose to play Stander. " In all my characters, I try to find two diametrically opposed, yet equal forces that exist within the person. It’s just a matter of making those forces powerful enough and then letting them do their thing." Jane has unknowingly slipped into actor-speak during his last statement and stops himself to bring more clarity to his explanation. He shifts gears and comes at the topic from a slightly different (and more tangible) approach. "Andre’s two needs are at odds with each other," Jane begins. "He has a distinct desire to do the right thing and to be a family man. Yet on the other hand, he has a very strong desire to undermine the values his father instilled in him and to fly in the face of convention." Jane holds up his hands. "These things are ultimately constricting. And conformity leads to rebellion."

Jane smoothes a wrinkle in his pants and says, "As an actor, I’m interested in both of those desires and I’m interested with the fact that they are inherently in conflict with one or another."

•  •  •  •  •

That Jane has little in the way of a reputation off-screen is hardly surprising; there is just no information about him out there. Researching his background prior to our interview, I came across only two hard facts about his history: He was born in Baltimore in 1969. That was it. Stories about his current marriage to Patricia Arquette, with whom he has a child, are certainly available, but have nothing to offer in the way of back story about him personally.

This is supremely shocking because before making it big in Hollywood, Jane’s experiences are unbelievable. If his acting credits didn’t match his story, I would have thought that Jane was assuredly inflating his biography. When I mention the spate of information available to Jane, he shrugs with a ‘what can you do?’ look on his face and fills me in. Rereading his quotes, I’m still not entirely sure I believe him.

Jane’s tale begins when he dropped out of high school at the age of fifteen. "I didn’t like it," he offers in way of an explanation. "A neighbor of ours told my mother that she worked next to an acting school. I had done a play in high school and enjoyed it immensely." So Jane started attending the acting school, his parents delighted that he was going to some form of school period. Here, his story takes a left turn. "Then some Indians from Madras came to town," Jane recounts. "They were making a Bollywood film and needed a blonde haired guy to be in it. My acting coach sent me to the audition and I got the job. We shot a Bollywood Romeo and Juliet style film in Washington DC, New York, Orange County, St. Louis and then flew off to India where I lived for several months. I turned seventeen in India. I did another movie there and then I came back to Baltimore."

Jane’s time in India was surreal. "I’d never been out of Maryland," he laughs. "It was like flying to Mars." A beat and, "Third World Mars." Continuing with his story, Jane says, "Then I came back and drove out to California."

Unlike most other struggling actors who move to Hollywood though, Jane didn’t live in a beat up one room apartment in the Valley or sleep in his car. No, Jane managed to effectively raise the bar on his compatriots. He went full-blown homeless. "I lived on park benches and welfare hotels," Jane says extremely matter-of-factly. "I lived off of food stamps for a while and ate out of trash cans. I played my guitar on the street for money." Unfortunately for Jane, he only knew two songs, Bob Dylan’s ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ and Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe’. "I played them ad nauseum," he chuckles. "Girls would come out while I was playing and smoke their cigarettes and rehearse their lines for this little ninety-nine seat basement theater. I talked to the girl and then would go into the theater," Jane nods. Soon he was acting on stage with the girls. "A casting director saw me and put me in a commercial," Jane says. "Then I did a few commercials and I got a line in Buffy the Vampire Slayer [with Kirsty Swanson]."

Just over ten years later, Jane’s journey has taken him through summer blockbusters, the best indie fare the film world has to offer and has now positioned him on the door to super stardom.

• • • • •

As we return to the topic of working with good directors–something Jane has earlier deemed, "a crap-shoot"–I question him about his decision to work with Hughes on Stander. It flies in the face of convention, as Hughes’ last directed Ben Affleck in the mega-bomb, Forces of Nature. "Even the good directors will make a misstep," Jane muses, "When I watched Forces of Nature, the film was flawed, but there was a vibrancy to the filmmaking that I found very engaging and alive. Although the movie didn’t work, I thought the style was novel, creative and searching. It was pushing the boundaries and wasn’t stagnant." Hughes has managed to put her camera in the right place.

Jane smiles when I phrase it to him as such. "A lot of the time, yes," he says. "That’s one way to put it." Leaning forward in his chair now, Jane takes a deep breath and says, "I guess as I’ve gotten a little more experience under my belt I’m able to pick directors who I think I will have a good experience with." Jane clasps his hands together and continues speaking. "I worked with Larry Kasdan on Dreamcatcher," he states, "and it was an incredible piece of work. Technically, it’s just A-plus work. It’s a beautifully shot, well acted, fantastically choreographed and superbly edited failure." Lifting his head slightly, Jane finally says, "They are not all there perfectly cut diamonds." But he’s doing his damnedest to make sure that his projects are.