Norman Reedus has put down his tuna melt and is staring at me intently. It's an unseasonably warm April evening in New York and, after some friendly bribery, we've managed to secure an outdoor table at a famous West Village tavern. We talk aout his ride, a forty-dollar, flea market BMX. We order sandwiches and beer. Then I ask my first question, something about his way of preparing for roles, and that stare -- the one that has been lent to a number of his most memorable and unstable performances -- fixes on me, an intense counterpoint to his unhurried Californian drawl. "The first film I ever did was this one called Floating, and I really didn't know what the fuck I was doing," he offers by way of explanation. In that movie, Reedus plays Van, a twenty-something petty criminal taking care of his wheelchair-bound father. Towards the end, there's a dramatic scene in which his father struggles out of his wheelchair to give him a hug, an act of love Can finds emotionally overwhelming. Fifteen minutes before they were going to shoot it, the director walked in and asked Reedus how he wanted to get ready. In real life, Reedus' father had just become wheelchair-bound due to an illness, so he asked for a cell phone and a few minutes by himself. He dialed his dad, chatted for a few minutes about nothing in particular, and then went out to do the scene. "The first take they couldn't use because so much snot came out of my nose -- they said it was too disgusting," he recalls. A second take fared better, and everyone broke for lunch while Reedus retired to his trailer for a nap. Later, on his way back to the set, he was approached by a grip, someone he had never spoken to before. "He stopped me and said, 'I want to tell you something. At lunch, nobody ate and nobody spoke. Everyone just sat there quiet.' I walked away from that thinking that you can really do shit with this acting stuff if there's people out there who want to watch it. But I don't feel the need to do that for everybody, because they don't deserve it. If I wrecked my day doing it and the movie came out and was all fast cars and money shots, then I would feel really used." He glances at his plate, picks up his sandwich, takes a bite. For a moment he looks almost sheepish, as if embarrassed not to have answered with some witty, publicist-sanctioned soundbite, the way one of his peers might have done. "Does that make sense?" he wonders. If Norman Reedus doesn't seem like your typical up-and-coming Hollywood celebrity, that's because you've got him wrong on three counts. The arc of his career renders adjectives like 'up-and-coming' meaningless, he hates Hollywood, and he espouses the kind of dim view of fame you'd expect from someone who has just enough of it to know. But if he's not boilerplate box office star, neither is he textbook indie. He's appeared in almost two-dozen films since making his bow in 1997, but still remains better known for a Prada campaign he appeared in alongside Joaquin Phoenix, Tim Roth, and Willem Dafoe. He hates the big studio system, yet won't rule out working in it, and even cops to an appreciation for "popcorn movies." He's famously handsome, but prefers to play extreme, often violent characters. And, perhaps most confounding of all, he is a rare, raw talent who nevertheless claims to lack the motivation necessary to push his career along. All of which begs the question: who, exactly, is Norman Reedus? Mainstream audiences may recognize the 35-year-old actor from supporting roles in Mimic, 8mm, and Blade 2, but Reedus' most arresting performances to date have appeared in a number of high-profile independents: playing a psychotic hit-man opposite ex-Blondie singer Debbie Harry in Six Ways to Sunday, a mysterious drifter in Dark Harbor, and 50s counterculture intellectual Lucien Carr in Beat, among others. He is a compulsively watchable presence, equally adept at conveying bravado and chilling, almost psychotic malice--often within the confines of the same scene. His eyes, veiled and distant, could just as easily belong to an artist or a murderer. In either case, he's often holding guns. Far and away, though, it's his career-making turn as a divinely inspired vigilante in 2000's Boondock Saints that has earned Reedus the most attention. Despite failing to secure distribution in the aftermath of the Columbine shootings (the film's heavily-armed, black trench coat-sporting heroes hit a bit too close to home for studio execs), it has nevertheless gone on to become a word-of-mouth sensation, fueled by a worldwide network of fan websites. He claims that role as the only reason he gets recognized on the street, and then offers proof a moment later when a preppy guy in khaki shorts and boat shoes approaches our table declaring it his favorite movie of all time. Reedus thanks him and shakes his hand -- he's unfailingly polite -- but then leans in to tell me about another fan he met recently. "He had my character's face tattooed on his arm," he says, grimacing. "That was a little weird." While it's true that Boondock Saints made Reedus a famous name, he's been a famous face for somewhat longer. Leaving home at the age of 12 to play on a pro tennis circuit, he spent his teens living with his mother in England, Spain, and Japan. Later, he followed a girlfriend to Los Angeles and took a job working at a motorcycle repair shop where his primary responsibilities consisted of disassembling bikes and shoveling dog shit. An inauspicious beginning, but one not without its own share of Lost Angeleno magic: despite lacking any formal acting training, he was discovered at a party and briefly appeared on stage before making the transition to film. Fast forward to the late-90's, when press shots from Six ways to Sunday caught the eye of Miuccia Prada, creative director of the avant-garde Italian fashion house, and led to Reedus being cast in their then current actor-themed campaign. Overnight, his stock exploded, but the incident also provided an irresistible lead for lazy journalists: Norman Reedus, model-turned actor. It's a misperception he's had to struggle to correct for years, and the frustration shows, but he's also maintained a sense of humor about his brief brush with couture. "My five friends and I shared the same suit for a year, and then I did that shoot and suddenly we all had suits," he laughs. "That was kind of nice." There were other benefits, as well. The buzz generated by the campaign prompted Vanity Fair to include Reedus on an April 1999 cover featuring rising talents to watch. Looking at that photo today, though, the urge to make comparisons between his subsequent career and those of his co-stars is irresistible. Here's Adrian Brody, Oscar-winner. There's Reese Witherspoon, one of Hollywood's highest paid actresses. Across the break are Julia Stiles and Giovanni Ribisi--one a household name, the other busily becoming one. Reedus is over in the corner, oozing sex appeal. So what gives? Why the difficult movies? Why the troubled characters? Why hasn't someone bothered to sit him down opposite some edgeless starlet for the feel good hit of the summer? If Norman Reedus' goal were to become a gigantic, blue chip star, he would be doing a terrible job. Of course, that's the cool thing about Norman Reedus: it's never been his goal. "So much of that isn't even about acting. It's about going to the right parties, getting your face in the back of magazines, going on audition with 50 guys who look like you and kissing ass to be number 17 on the list. I don't do that lifestyle," he says, looking disgusted. What he does do is consciously seek out roles he finds interesting, often working with first-time directors because he appreciates their enthusiasm and willingness to collaborate. "It's really hard to find people to work with, as opposed to work for. A lot of directors act like they're doing you a favor. I've done maybe two of those movies and they're the absolute worst experience I've had." But if Reedus is motivated by a desire to be involved with projects he genuinely cares about, he seems equally motivated by a fear of putting his heart and soul into crap. This is actually much more of a singularity among actors than you might expect -- names synonymous with artistic quality are constantly showing up attached to vehicles that practically scream 'direct to video.' For Reedus, it's not enough to be the best part of a bad movie -- though, to be sure, he has been that, and on more than one occasion. He exercises a degree of quality control that can only be practiced by the very famous and those who, for whatever reason, feel comfortable taking a laissez-faire attitude towards their careers. He is picky, and he knows it. But that still doesn't totally explain why. At several points during our conversation, Reedus claims to lack a drive of any kind, and while that seems to be at least partially true, it's also slightly disingenuous. He rarely actively pursues a role, and has been in his agent's office a grand total of twice, but still manages to somehow stay extremely busy. When I meet him, he's on his way back from a fitting for a film he's shooting in California the next week. After that, he says, he'll be in Florida, then on to Germany. He has a project in development with Korean director Myung-Sea Lee and has signed on for All Saints Day, the sequel to Boondock Saints. Once seated at our outdoor table, he surprises me by pulling out a tape recorder and setting it next to mine, though it turns out to contain scratchy tracks of a elderly gentleman from Tennessee telling long, complicated yarns (he needs to pick up an accent for an upcoming role and is scrutinizing the tape for local inflections). These are not the work habits of a man with no drive. It may not be money or fame, but Reedus is clearly motivated by something. The truth comes down to something both banal and extraordinary: he's got a lot of creative energy. Besides his acting pursuits, Reedus has found the time to become both an accomplished painter and photographer, and has lately gotten heavily into the latter. His face lights up when he starts talking about the people he's shot--country singers, Japanese children, fashion models on trapezes. He carries a camera almost everywhere and recently bought a five-megapixel digital model because "it's the minimum picture quality for most magazines." He's no idle dilettante. And, though he doesn't say it, he's much the same way when he's knee-deep in a role, bursting at the seams to articulate something that may exist nowhere but inside his own head. Norman Reedus may have become an actor seemingly by accident, but it's clear that he would have ended up doing something creative with himself. And if it sometimes seems as if his heart isn't totally in acting, that's probably because it isn't. It's just one option among many, and dammit if he isn't going to keep his options open. Like most unseasonably warm April evenings in New York, this one has turned out to be not entirely sincere. It's dropped at least 15 degrees in the past couple of hours and all but the most seasonably depressed have moved inside or piled into cabs. While we attempt to catch the eyes of the suddenly invisible wait staff, I ask Reedus about directors he'd like to work with ("Jim Jarmusch," he replies instantly), music he's digging (San Francisco's The Locust, whose raw energy makes them a perfect and telling choice), and the changes fatherhood has brought to his life. "It's changed it in so many ways," he says, turning pensive. "You're just not the most important thing anymore and your whole life is altered by that." His son, Mingus -- whose mother is Reedus' long-time girlfriend, former model and Nylon co-founder Helena Christensen -- is now four, and Reedus has been busy spoiling him. "I want him to grow up knowing that he's the shit," he says, grinning. "I mean, sometimes he pisses me off. He'll throw something across the room and keep me up all night, but then he'll wake me up and say, 'I love you like the ocean.' And you get up and do it again. It's the best thing ever." The bill paid, he stands up, shivering, ready to head home for a night in with the family. It's now officially cold again; spring has been beaten back, at least for today. Reedus lights a cigarette and begins to extricate his bike from the embrace of the rusty ten-speed it's become enmeshed with, quizzing me all the while about the magazine I write for. Has he seen it? When will the article be out? Do we accept photo submissions? I promise to send him some copies and pass some of his photos onto my editor, and he nods enthusiastically. Then he's up and away, pumping hard down Greenwich Street, looking for all the world like just some ordinary guy, which of course he is, which of course he is not.