PAUL GIAMATTI, A STAR AT LAST

After a career of working the sidelines, acclaimed actor Paul Giamatti has successfully moved into the middle of the frame with the breakout hit "Sideways." He has become the kind of actor whom directors rely on, if not to open a movie, then to bring it home. Now, director M. Night Shyamalan has cast Giamatti as the central character in Warner Bros.' new supernatural thriller "Lady in the Water."

"He is very much a leading man," Shyamalan says. "For me, he is like Tom Hanks - he can carry a movie. Paul's eyes are very beautiful in a puppy-dog way. The audience is compelled to want what that person wants and that is a sign of a real star."

In "Lady in the Water," Giamatti puts himself in a fairy tale of Shyamalan's complete invention - the film sprang from a bedtime story he used to tell his children. "It's a little bit of 'E. T.' and a little bit of 'Princess Bride,' " says. Shyamalan. "Paul plays the superintendent of an apartment building and he finds a strange woman swimming at night. He comes to believe that she is a character in a bedtime story that everyone in the building has a role in."

As always with Shyamalan, the suspension of disbelief will come in handy and usually leads to unexpected places. Playing opposite the actress Bryce Dallas Howard, who is cast as a "narf," a kind of magical creature, Giamatti found plenty to work with. "These are people who lead very mundane lives who are thrust into something extraordinary," he notes.

"Actors are generally good at promoting themselves in subtle, manipulative ways but Paul does not possess that quality," co-star Howard explains. "There is a darkness underneath that humor that reflects how intelligent he is, although Paul's intelligence is a very private matter. He is not at all showy about it."

Perhaps because he spent much of his early career playing eccentric characters, he takes nothing for granted. "I don't consider myself a very interesting person," he said matter-of-factly. "I have the mentality of a supporting actor."

Giamatti likes being "that guy" instead of "THAT GUY." "I have some notoriety, but it's just enough," he said. "I get a lot of recognition from the weird mailman. That's enough. It can stop right there. I still want to be the guy who can get on the subway and check out the freak on the subway."

Much has been made of the fact that he received no Oscar nomination for his universally acclaimed performance in "Sideways," and was nominated, but not selected, for his supporting role in "Cinderella Man." But when Giamatti says he couldn't care less, he couldn't care less. He is happy to have meaty roles to play - awards would be fine and all, but as long as he is getting decent, serious work, all the rest is gravy.

Or, as he puts it, "I just sort of want to see how this movie thing plays out."

Opening soon across the Philippines, "Lady in the Water" is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Entertainment Company.