::: BEAUTY LIVE IN THE WORLD :::

And Douglas brings humanity to an exceedingly difficult role that could get him an Oscar in an independent film. It shows you that the higher you are, the harder you fall until at the end you are invisible. People who once knew you don't return your calls; others are too busy to see you. He tries to cheat aging by chasing younger and younger women but as a character says to him, "You can't cheat death no matter how many 19-year-olds you talk into your bed".

Douglas's character Ben Kalman, once a reasonable celebrity as `New York's honest car dealer', has seen it all -the heights of fame, the depths of anonymity. Still charming, good-looking, still persuasive, he is invisible because now down on his luck, no one knows him.

Says Roger Ebert, "He isn't solitary by choice but by default. He cheated on his good wife Nancy (Susan Sarandon).

He disappointed their daughter, Susan (Jenna Fischer) one time too many. He cheats on his current companion, Jordan (Mary-Louise Parker), in a particularly unforgivable way. He uses charm and the offer of his experience in life to charm Daniel Cheston (Jesse Eisenberg), a college student, and then betrays him. He has lied to his customers so often that, as everyone knows, `Honest Ben Kalman' spent time behind bars.

Yet he's charming and persuasive. He looks like a winner until you look too close. Solitary Man follows him for several days after he agrees to ac company Jordan's daughter, Allyson (Imogen Poots), as she goes for a college interview.

This is the same school he attended. He knows the dean, which may be a help.

You want to like Ben. He works on encouraging that.

When he was younger and less of a sinner, he must have been good to know, and there's an effective character in Solitary Man who suggests that. This is his old buddy Jimmy (Danny DeVito), who still runs a greasy spoon diner. On campus, Ben befriends the naive Cheston with man-of-the-world advice about sex, success and how to sell yourself. With women, Ben's approach is solicitous: Do some men misunderstand you? Are your qualities recognised? What are you getting out of the transaction?

The film is all about Ben Kalman, but one of the strengths of Michael Douglas' performance is that he isn't playing a character. He's playing a character who is playing a character. Ben's life has become performance art. You get the feeling he never goes offstage. He sees few women he doesn't try seducing. As a car dealer, he was also in the seduction trade. His business was selling himself at a dealership. What about in life when you need a recall?

What happens with Ben and the people in his life, especially the women, I should not hint at here. The movie depends on our fascination as we see what lengths this man will go to.

Solitary Man is a serious comedy, perceptive, nuanced, with every supporting performance well-calibrated to demonstrate to Ben that he can run but he can no longer hide.

Here is one of Douglas' finest performances. Because the other characters, no matter what they think, never truly engage Ben, he's on that stage by himself. Everyone else is in the audience. Douglas plays Ben as charismatic, he plays him shameless, he plays him as brave, and very gradually, he learns to play him as himself.

That's the only role left."

I remember Mother Teresa telling me on her return from the West — “It’s easy to deal with the poverty of the East.

Feed a person and you give them some happiness, but the poverty of the West, which is loneliness and an inability to communicate, I don’t know how to cope with that.” At the core, Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is lonely and his inability to reach out to others makes him angry and unbearable to the people he’s trying to come to terms with.

Noah Baumbach, who makes formidable films like The Squid and the Whale about a family torn apart by a divorce with no one, not even their children to help them, is an authority on the Western mode of loneliness, isolation, anger and all the other symptoms of being alone.

Says my guru Roger Ebert, “When you’re angry with the world and yourself to the same degree, you’re running in place. It takes a great deal of energy. You lash out at people. It all takes place in your head. After a time, people give up on you.

“That’s Roger Greenberg. I never knew who Stiller was born to play, but now I do. I don’t mean he is Greenberg, but that he makes him a convincing person and not a caricature. Greenberg was once, years ago, part of a rock band on the brink of a breakthrough. He walked away from it, stranding his bandmates, and never explained why. He fled Los Angeles and became a carpenter in New York.

“He’s been struggling. There has been some sort of vague period in an institution. Now he’s returned to LA to house-sit his brother’s big home and look after the dog. He can live alone no more successfully than with others. He calls Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig), his brother’s family assistant, who knows where everything is and how everything works.

And the dog knows her.

“Florence is someone we know. A bright, pleasant recent college grad uate for whom the job market has no use. We see her interacting with the family of Greenberg's brother; she does all the planning for them she should be doing for herself. In a more conventional movie, Florence would be the love interest, and Greenberg would be fated to marry her. But Florence isn’t looking for a man. She just broke up. ‘I don’t want to go from just having sex to sex to sex,’ she says. ‘Who’s the third ‘sex’?’ asks Greenberg. ‘You.’ Greenberg treats her badly. When they end up having sex, and they do, it’s like their right hands don’t know what heir left hands are doing. “He has a reunion with a former bandmate, Ivan (Rhys Ifans), a calm Brit, troubled by a trial separation, happy enough to see Greenberg and help him if he can.

But Ivan is worried that Greenberg still doesn’t understand how he crushed the dreams of his bandmates. Then there’s Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who Greenberg once loved and was loved by. She has moved on in her life. She has a family.

“The important relationship is the one between Greenberg and Florence. She’s happy when she has a purpose. She wishes she had a direction in life but can be happy enough in the moment. It’s as if when Greenberg moves a little in the direction of happiness, he gets jealous because that draws attention away from his miserable uniqueness. People driven to be constantly unique can be a real pain in the ass.

“We can’t stand Greenberg. But we begin to care about him.” That’s how good Ben Stiller is.

SAM HAD SOMETHING I HADN'T SEEN BEFORE IN A GUY THAT AGE. THE VOICE, THE DEMEANOUR. BUT THE STUDIO WAS NERVOUS -- JAMES CAMERON ON WORTHINGTON I ALSO CARE THAT THE PUBLIC ARE GETTING THEIR $12 WORTH WHEN THEY GO TO A MOVIE, AND THAT THEY'RE NOT COMING OUT NOT WANTING TO EVER SEE A MOVIE WITH ME IN IT AGAIN. I DON'T CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF ME AS A PERSON, BUT I DO CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF MY WORK, AND WHETHER I'M INVESTING ENOUGH INTO IT (EMPIRE MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 2006)

I didn't set out to be famous, if I'd wanted that, I would have gon on Big Brother orn on August 2, 1976 in Godalming, Surrey England, Samuel Shane Worthington moved to Perth, Australia when he was two months old.

Though it’s now hard to imagine him as anything other than a successful actor, Sam Worthington didn’t embrace the idea of pursuing a career in this particular field of arts until he was well into his twenties.

Having dropped out of school at 17, Worthington had been biding his time working a series of odd jobs. His path changed dramatically after he agreed to accompany a girlfriend to her audition for Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). While there, Worthington’s impulsive decision to audition proved successful as he found himself accepted to the prestigious school with a scholarship (his girlfriend, however, was denied entrance).

After learning the ins and outs of the acting craft during his stint at NIDA, he emerged hungry for work and subsequently began auditioning for roles with gusto. He spent the first few months of his fledgling career appearing in local stage productions, with his on-screen debut coming in 2000 with a small part in an episode of JAG. For the next several years, Worthington appeared in a variety of television shows and movies, including the 2002 Bruce Willis action Hart’s War and the 2002 Toni Collette/John Goodman comedy Dirty Deeds.

Worthington’s days of toiling in lowbudget Australian cinema are clearly over, given that he has clearly come a long way since making his cinematic debut with a role in 2000’s forgettable Aussie comedy Bootmen. It’s worth noting, however, that he has always been choosy in terms of deciding which roles to accept and which to turn down, as evidenced by a filmography that’s primarily dominated by a whole host of artistically challenging efforts — including 2004’s award-winning Somersault and the 2005 James Franco war flick The Great Raid.

He won AFI Award Best Actor in a leading role for Somersault.

His undeniable on-screen charisma and natural acting abilities have proved instrumental in his ascent to the top of Hollywood’s list of promising up-andcomers.

The year 2006 proved to be a particularly lucrative for this rising star as he took on the title role in a modern retelling of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and landed a starring gig opposite Radha Mitchell  and Michael Vartan in the 2007 horror flick Rogue. His reputation as one of Holly wood's most promising up-and-coming performers brought him to the attention of several high-profile directors, though it was James Cameron who ultimately cast him in his biggest production to date Avatar.

Cameron was so impressed with Wor thington's work that he suggested him to director McG for a role in Terminator Sal vation, and he soon found himself worke ing side-by-side with Christian Bale.

After almost a decade of roles in Aus tralian TV shows and films, Worthington gained Hollywood's attention by playing the role of Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation, the lead role as Jake Sully in the James Cameron directed mega block buster Avatar and Perseus in Clash of the Titans. Given that he's also at work on a drama co-starring Keira Knightley and Eva Mendes entitled Last Night, Worthington has clearly established himself as one of his generation's most prolific and flat-out talented performers.

The gamble paid When Worthington was around 30, he sold most of his possessions and ended up with around $2,000 to his name. He then purchased a car and lived in it for a period of time.

Before Avatar, the actor admits he was living in his car. He subsequently got a place to live following his successful audition and signing to the Avatar film project.

He has said that he will go wherever the work takes him and would "like to go on `Dancing with the Stars'." -Compiled by Supriya Rai • He won a scholarship to the John Curtin School of Performing Arts in Fremantle, WA • He was a finalist to play James Bond in Casino Royale before Daniel Craig was selected.

• He worked as a bricklayer before becoming an actor.

• He has blurred vision but he does not wear glasses.

• Aside from acting, the actor is a keen surfer.

• His favourite artists include Xavier Rudd and Bernard Fanning.

• Worthington was cast in Avatar after Jake Gyllenhaal and Matt Damon turned down the role.

• In 2009 he got his first Teen Choice Award nomination for Choice Movie Fresh Face Male in Terminator Salvation.

• He was once described as one of Australia’s most likable young leading men by efilmcritic.com • Won the ‘GQ Man of the Year’ award in Australia in 2009, over Eric Bana and Russell Crowe.