John Cusack Gets Personal

We all know the angst-ridden, neurotic, media-created female archetype well. But why must temporary, break-up-inspired insanity and fear of ending up alone with too many cats be portrayed as distinctly female territory? Men have also been known to whine, stalk and cry in the rain when the object of their affection decides they're no longer interested. So finally, to counterbalance all the Ally McBeal types out there, the male version of the insecure relationship disaster has been brought to the big screen in the film "High Fidelity," starring John Cusack. "The scariest thing about dating," says Cusack, "is there comes a point, no matter how fantastic a relationship has been, where you don't know quite whether this isn't the right person or if this is just the same thing you will go through again and again. You're always looking for the rush of the first two months. You never quite know if you have itchy feet or it's in your head."Even if Cusack hasn't totally figured the relationship thing out yet, High Fidelity, based on Nick Hornby's popular book of the same name, may open up some room for dialogue between the sexes.Cusack, who also co-wrote and co-produced the film, plays Rob Gordon, the 36-year-old slacker owner of a failing Chicago record store who's much more committed to his extensive collection of vinyl than to his live-in girlfriend (Iben Hjejle). The film opens with his girlfriend moving out, and Rob spends the rest of the time trying to exorcise his relationship demons, hunting down ex-girlfriends from as far back as grade-school in an attempt to figure out where things went wrong. In his role as Rob Cusack sketches an often unflattering (though not wholly unbelievable) caricature of an immature, self-absorbed, confused man. He's afraid of committing to his girlfriend because, you know, his fantasy woman could step into his divey record shop and whisk him off his feet any day.While Cusack is hush hush about his own romantic life -- he's been linked to Minnie Driver, Claire Forlani and Neve Campbell, among others -- at 33 he admits to going though his fair share of messy break ups and struggling with many of the same relationship issues. He says that when he read Hornby's book he saw himself in it. "Rob is someone most straight men can relate to," Cusack says. "They might not go as low as he does, and they might not be as poor or as inert, but as far as the emotions and the conversations and being intimate and committing to a woman -- as far as the circus in our heads -- it's really tapped into all that."Interspersed with insights into the male romantic psyche is Rob's relationship with his two socially stunted employees -- Dick (Todd Louiso) and Barry (Jack Black). The trio bond through their encyclopedic knowledge of pop music and snobbery toward those who are less auditorily educated than they. While it follows the book closely, some critics have been bothered that the film takes the story out of its native London and sets up shop in Chicago. Cusack says that doesn't change the story. "It's about men and how they relate to women and themselves and about a love of music," he says. (Even Hornby didn't mind the change in venue.) Unlike Rob, Cusack isn't struggling in a dead-end career. With more than 40 movies under his belt, his own production company, screenwriting credits and screen and stage awards, Cusack has built a reputation as one of today's most respected young actors, and he's done so without falling prey to the Hollywood machine. "I don't want to be involved in anything that's jingoistic or sensationalistic," he told Premiere magazine in 1990. "People in Hollywood don't think about the moral ramifications of what they do. They're trying to make a buck, and they continually whitewash history."And for the most part he's stayed true to his ideals, making films he believes in. He admits to working within the system in order to gain the freedom necessary to work on less mainstream projects. The action blockbuster Con Air, for instance, allowed him to make the black comedy Grosse Pointe Blank, his first turn as a producer and screenwriter. Cusack says he likes to do films that are entertaining and also ask you to think a bit, like Grosse Pointe Blank. The story about a hit man who goes back to his high school reunion relied on absurdity and satire to provide social criticism, he says."We were trying to get in the genre and then come through the back door and get some ideas on it. Sort of subvert the genre," Cusack told E! Online.He's anti-Hollywood for the most part, eschewing trendy hot spots and vowing a dislike for the Oscars and the politics behind them. (Though he's self-effacing enough to suggest that his opinion might change were he to be nominated for an award.)Of his penchant for playing offbeat types (like a disgruntled puppeteer in last year's Being John Malkovich, or a con artist who is seduced by his mother in 1990's The Grifters) he says:"I like odd things. I don't like straight-down-the-middle leading men. They're boring. They have no shadows."Does he have shadows?"I think everybody has a lot of shadows."It's part of the mystique perhaps. Part of the anti-pretty-boy, every-guy persona that makes his characters so easy to relate to. They're unafraid of exposing their own weaknesses, they rarely have things all figured out, they're honest about their desires for love and acceptance and they're often in need of a decent haircut. In short, they make the rest of us feel like we're not doing so badly.