BEVERLY HILLS -- Adam Beach almost missed the chance to play the movie role some are saying could earn him an Academy Award nomination.

The Ottawa-based actor wanted to portray troubled Native American Marine Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers -- which opens Oct. 20 -- from the moment he heard Clint Eastwood was directing the movie.

But at 33, Beach, who has appeared in everything from John Woo's big-budget 2002 Nicholas Cage movie Windtalkers to the low-key CBC show Moose TV, was told he would be too old to play one of three survivors of the American flag-raising at Iwo Jima.

"I thought 'damn,' " Beach tells the Sun.

A month before shooting in Iceland, Beach was bed-ridden with the flu, emerging three days later to pick up some frantic phone messages.

"My manager and lawyer called and said 'Clint wants to talk to you. They want you to read for the role.' "

Beach recorded his audition tape the next morning and had the part by the weekend.

Beach has third billing in Flags' giant ensemble cast, but his role is the meatiest.

Hayes' story, told in the Johnny Cash-performed The Ballad of Ira Hayes and in the 1961 Tony Curtis film The Outsider, is a tragic one. Unable to get past the horrors of war or deal with being considered a hero, Hayes was an alcoholic who was in and out of prison until he died of exposure in 1955.

Beach had a lot to draw on in playing the emotionally burdened Hayes.

A member of the Saulteaux tribe from Manitoba, and born in Winnipeg, Beach lost both parents within months when he was just eight. His best friend died just before production began. And during shooting, moments ahead of a pivotal scene, Beach was told his grandmother had died.

"I had a huge heaviness that carried me through it," he recalls. "I couldn't mourn for anyone because I was working. I had to wait until the job was done."

Co-star Ryan Phillippe was the first to peg Beach's performance as Oscar-worthy, proclaiming "you're nominated" on set.

Beach "just blew me away," says Phillippe. "He was the perfect guy to play this man."

While Eastwood could see possibilities in Beach's audition tape, "he turned out to be even better than I expected him to be."

Beach said his experience working for Eastwood has been pivotal.

Beach spent the first two weeks of shooting waiting for the notoriously light-handed director to tell him what he was doing wrong, before realizing Eastwood was simply expecting his best.

"Clint is the only man I've ever met who has given me confidence, has loaned me strength and made me really believe in myself."

With two young sons from his first marriage living close by, Beach and wife Tara have no plans to move from Ottawa. Instead, he'll continue to commute to Los Angeles for auditions.

"What I feel like is Aladdin riding a magic carpet ride, because it's overwhelming, but it's very genuine," he says. "Nobody's putting me on a pedestal.

"They're receiving it in a way that it's a nice pat on the back."

Since Flags of our Fathers, Beach wrapped Comanche Moon, a prequel to Lonesome Dove and Luna: Way Home.

He is shooting the HBO movie Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee with Aidan Quinn and Anna Paquin until mid-November.

Oscar nod or not, starring in Flags is already opening new Hollywood door for Beach.

"And it feels good," he says with a smile.

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