Sept. 29, 2005

View stills from "Into the Blue"

Whatever you do, don't call Paul Walker a pretty boy.

"I hate it," the Southern California surfer says. "I sometimes wish my nose was broken once or twice more. People discount me ... I've always had a chip on my shoulder about that."

Walker will get a chance to change people's perceptions after co-starring with Jessica Alba in "Into The Blue" -- the thriller features Walker mostly shirtless and clearly in popcorn-movie mode. He's made his career with such crowd-pleasing hits as "The Fast and the Furious" and "Varsity Blues." Those movies are company the producers of "Blue" would love to keep.  But Walker never wanted to be an actor. He ironically (in this case) studied marine biology.

"What I excelled at was absolutely nothing and getting into trouble," he says laughing. "My father and my mother still say to this day that I would have been in prison if things didn't break for me with movies because I like doing the bad stuff. Somebody was looking out for me."

That edge made the working conditions for "Into The Blue" a welcome challenge for Walker. Everything may look sunny and fun on screen, but the live sharks proved daunting.

"There is a sequence where Jessica is throwing me my mask and fins and I'm treading water," he says. "I can't really see the sharks. I can only feel them bumping into me. The big ones, they behave. They'll bump you, but they decide that maybe your density may be a little too thick and they'd rather not take a bite out of you. But the little ones? Those are the ones that keep coming back. Those are the ones that make me nervous. They don't know the ropes and they are the ones that more frequently bite."

Walker escaped unharmed, which was a welcome relief for the filmmakers producing his next three films. In January, Walker will star as an Italian mobster in "Running Scared." Next summer he'll be in the Disney family film "Antarctica." But the big stretch will be next year's "Flag of Our Fathers," directed by Clint Eastwood. Walker will star as one of the men who raised the American flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. But even with all that great work ahead, missing out on "The Fast and the Furious 3" has Walker annoyed. 

"The only thing that pisses me off is that before we did the [last] sequel, I told them we should shoot in Japan and it should be about drifting," he says. "They looked at me like I was insane. Nobody had heard of it in the U.S. But guess what? Three years later that's exactly what it is. It's in Japan and it's all on drifting."

Walker should take solace that missing out on the "Furious" sequel will only help shed that pesky pretty boy image.

Next: Walker's beautiful co-star, Jessica Alba, on her dislike of bikinis and more ...