The boy next door is about go big time

Emile Hirsch is best known for his roles as the skateboarder from "Lords of Dogtown" and the cute boy next door in "The Girl Next Door."

That will change this weekend when his new movie "Into the Wild" casts him as Chris McCandless, a college grad who shucks his savings and privileged lifestyle to bum around America, eventually settling into the Alaskan wilderness. Sean Penn directed the drama, based on Jon Krakauer's book.

I sat down with Hirsch recently at Chicago's Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Q. You've worked with regular directors, but Sean Penn is an actor who became a director. Does that make a difference?

A. I think so. At least with Sean. I trusted him more than other directors. He knows way more about acting than I do, so I completely surrender to him.

Q. How so?

A. He trusted me. I trusted him to trust me. I trusted in the fact that he trusted me. Because he trusted me, I trusted myself. I figured, if he trusts me, then I must be pretty trustworthy.

Q. How did you get the role of Chris?

A. It took a long time, five or six months. He'd (Penn) call me like every couple of months and we'd go out and have dinner. We'd go out drinking. We'd just get together. We didn't talk about the movie all that much. At some point, I started forgetting about the project. I thought, "He just thinks I'm cool. Right? Hey, he just wants to hang out!" Wrong!

One day he calls me. "I just finished the script!" I didn't even know he was writing it. Then he says, "The part is yours if you want it." That was like the single most mind-blowing moment of my life.

Q. You lost a lot of weight for the role, especially near the end of the movie.

A. I had to lose like 25 pounds. That's what I had to lose before I had to lose weight for later in the movie. I lost 41 pounds total. I had to get down to 115 pounds.

Q. How did you do it?

A. I was constantly fighting the impulse to walk into a grocery store and buy a whole box of candy and gorge it. Keeping that hunger in check over a period of months is really hard.

Q. When you had to gain weight, what did you do?

A. I put on 25 pounds in like three weeks. For three weeks, all I ate was candy bars. I know that's bad, but that's all I craved.

Q. What brand?

A. Take Five. I was obsessed with Take Five. I tried to gain the weight back by eating steak, but I just couldn't take it. But the sugar in Take Five, I just loved it. I wanted more and more!

Q. What was your biggest concern?

A. I was hoping the movie wouldn't paint Chris as a hero or a bad guy. Don't do him an injustice by deciding what he's going to be for the audience.

Q. Do you think Mr. Penn did that?

A. I think so. I think we showed the flaws as well as the glory.

Q. Has being a movie star helped you out in the romance department?

A. I think that's a myth. I don't think that money and fame can buy you love.