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By Chris Nashawaty
Chris Nashawaty
Chris Nashawaty
Chris Nashawaty is a senior writer for EW, and author of EW.com's DVD Insomniac column

It isn't hard to make James Le Gros bust a gut laughing: Just call him ''the Brad Pitt of the independents.'' Okay, so he doesn't get $6 million a film or have his photo air-kissed by legions of swooning schoolgirls during recess. But if you've caught Le Gros' quirky, scene-stealing roles in such highly praised low-budget movies as Drugstore Cowboy and Safe, you may wonder why he's still toiling away in indie obscurity.

Are the rumors true that Le Gros' Living in Oblivion on-screen alter ego, a no-brains pretty-boy actor named Chad Palomino, is actually based on Pitt? Well, yes and no. ''Chad's an amalgam of different actors I've worked with -- three in particular, who shall remain nameless,'' says the 33-year-old Minnesota native. But despite being tight-lipped on Pitt, Le Gros will happily chitchat about his potentially embarrassing early gigs on TV's Punky Brewster as well as his breakout role as Matt Dillon's smack-addled sidekick in 1989's Drugstore Cowboy, or as Skippy, Diane Lane's bizarro next-door neighbor, in 1992's My New Gun, which he calls ''another movie I think about 74 people saw.''

Unlike Chad Palomino, you actually believe it when Le Gros says he isn't very ''L.A.,'' even though he lives there with his wife and 2-year-old son. ''I never get Lakers tickets or the best seats in restaurants,'' he says humbly. ''I collect misspellings of my last name -- James McRoy, McGros, Legras -- it's become kind of a sport.'' Not that he lives in some art-house ivory tower: ''It would be less than honest for me to say, 'Oh, no, don't give me that high-profile Tom Hanks career.''' So, maybe being the Brad Pitt of independent films is a step in the right direction. ''Brad's a handsome devil.... It's better than being the Abe Vigoda of independent films.''


Posted Jul 28, 1995 | Published in issue #285 Jul 28, 1995 | Order Article Reprints