The dangerous life of Emile Hirsch: the young rising star talks about the gap between playing a gay-leaning teen in The Mudge Boy and a "homophobic badass" in Lords of Dogtown.

The drama in Michael Burke's The Mudge Boy may be crackling with the sexual attraction between two teenage boys, but up-and-coming star Emile Hirsch, who plays title character Duncan Mudge, says it's no simple coming-out story. "He is a guy with no agendas," explains Hirsch. "I wanted to play hint as a very open boy, very pure. I didn't play him gay or straight, boy or girl. He is confused."

It's not surprising that Duncan is having trouble coping. Fourteen years old and stuck in the middle of the countryside, he is grieving over the death of his mother and distanced from his equally upset father. Tending his mother's chicken coop, he is the laughingstock of the other kids in the area, including swaggering jock Perry (played by Tom Guiry). But when Duncan develops a crush on Perry, the two are in for a sexual awakening.

"I didn't know whether he was gay," muses Hirsch, now 19 and talking to The Advocate on a break from shooting his latest, much larger film, Lords of Dogtown, with Heath Ledger and Johnny Knoxville. "And not knowing was what was called for. That was the power of the script."

Hirsch starred in The Mudge Boy when he was 17, in between The Emperor's Club with Kevin Kline and The Girl Next Door, the recently released comedy in which he played a teenager who falls for the pore star next door. One of the most promising of the new crop of Hollywood teen actors, he is also one of its most versatile.

"He really got the script," explains writer-director Burke, "and really fell in love with the character. This kid wants to be an actor, not a movie star."

Burke based some of the story on his own experiences. But he let Hirsch, whom he cast based on his reaction to the boy's visceral breakthrough performance in The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, come up with Duncan's inner thoughts. "Emile's sincerity in the character appealed to me," Burke says. "[Duncan] doesn't wear as much of a mask as most of us."

Part of the challenge for both director and star was shooting the intense scenes of physical intimacy between Duncan and Perry, including a kiss and an assault. "I was hesitant about taking the role because of the intimacy between the guys," says Hirsch, "but Tom and I kept it light on the set, joking around with each other. The heavy stuff was pretty heavy."

Ironically, it wasn't the assault that Hirsch recalls as the most difficult scene to shoot. "The scene where Duncan kisses Perry and Perry pushes him away across the car and calls him a 'flicking faggot' was really rough," he says. "We did several takes on it, and both of us said afterward it was the hardest scene we've ever had to do."

Hirsch grew up far from the rural world of the film; he laughs that he went to the very liberal Hamilton High School Academy of Music in Los Angeles, where it was "way cool to be gay." Duncan, he says, is the only character he has played to date who is sexually confused.

Meanwhile, his career is right on track. He recently completed Imaginary Heroes, with Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Daniels, in which Hirsch plays a boy hiding a mystery about the death of his brother. And he's currently playing "the opposite of Duncan"--a "homophobic badass"--in Lords of Dogtown. But Hirsch, who shot The Mudge Boy in 2002, has not forgotten the small independent film and is pleased it is finally hitting theaters. "It was hard work. We shot in 20 days, but I didn't want it to go straight to video or TV," he says. "It's so subtle and so powerful."

Goodridge is U.S. editor of Screen International.