Don Cheadle in "Hotel Rwanda."

Terry George, the writer and director of Hotel Rwanda, thinks Don Cheadle is one of the foremost character actors in the world.

What a coincidence -- everyone else on the planet thinks Don Cheadle is one of the foremost character actors in the world, too.

Cheadle is one of those actors whom every movie fan considers a personal "find." You may have noticed him -- sort of out of the corner of your eye -- back in the gang movie Colors in 1988, or even Hamburger Hill or Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead. But the movie that really announced Cheadle's arrival was probably Devil In A Blue Dress, for which he received a best supporting actor nod from the Los Angeles Film Critics.

An experienced stage actor and director and the star of such TV series as The Golden Palace and Picket Fences, Cheadle -- who is also, by the way, a talented musician --is a vet of three dozen films, including Boogie Nights, Out Of Sight, Things Behind The Sun, Swordfish, Bullworth, Ocean's Eleven, The United States Of Leland, Traffic and Mission To Mars. In 2005, he'll make his feature directing debut with a film version of Elmore Leonard's Tishomingo Blues. At the moment, he's on the big screen in After The Sunset and Ocean's Twelve.

Now 40, Cheadle takes the lead at last in Hotel Rwanda, opening here Friday. He plays the real-life Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who saved more than 1,000 people during the 1994 Rwanda genocide that saw a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed by Hutu extremists.

The horrifying conflict was largely ignored by the rest of the world. Not surprisingly, everyone involved with Hotel Rwanda seems somewhat obsessed with getting the story told.

When Cheadle was in Toronto during the film festival in September, Oscar talk about Hotel Rwanda (and specifically his performance) had already begun.

"I can't imagine waiting at home to get the call," he says with mock excitement for the Academy Award. He jokes, "Should I get to the old folks' home to press the flesh? Do I have to take out an ad? How will I know they've seen the screener? I know! I'll drive it to their house!

"Because now, that's what it seems to be all about. The glossy ad, the screener -- they're going to start pop-up characters in the DVD. It's a lot of work."

Hotel Rwanda, with or without Oscars attached, was a lot of work, too. Cheadle says he signed on for the movie because it and another film called Crash -- which he produced and which will be released in 2005 -- were the best things he read all year.

Otherwise, "Once it's over, as actors, it's over. We're low man on the totem pole. I don't cut it, or do the music, or the timing. I'm not in control of how it's released or the marketing. When I had the privilege of being in the film, I thought it was amazing. The script is amazing."

Cheadle, who got to meet the real Rusesabagina, says, "I didn't want to quiz him about what he experienced. I didn't want to put that on him, but he opened up a lot and told me about it. My idea of what somebody would be like who lived through a genocide -- he wasn't that person. I guess I imagined someone a lot more tragic, a lot more shell-shocked. I'm sure way down in there, that's there, but he's a happy, joyous, open man. He's not the walking wounded."

Cheadle, who is married to his Rosewood co-star Bridgid Coulter, says he got serious about acting very early. "I was in Charlotte's Web in fifth grade. I was Templeton -- a rich and multifaceted character," he adds, deadpan. "I remember taking the mimeographed sheets -- and smelling those and getting high," he laughs, "and taking them to a little doughnut shop and making notes. Templeton: How does a rat move? What would he eat at the fair? So at 10 years old, I was thinking about the motivation of a rat. Taking notes and s--t. Once I performed -- and I killed, it was fantastic, I wish you could all have seen it," he says, to much appreciative laughter, "I definitely felt like, hey, this is cool. Then it morphed into how I just wanted to do it to make a living doing make-believe. And then as I got older, into high school, I thought I could probably get laid a lot if I became famous."

When people stop laughing again, Cheadle continues, "Rock star, actor, athlete --if any one of them tell you that wasn't in their motivation, they're lying."

Adding "there's a lot of nookie in journalism" for the further amusement of his audience, Cheadle says he got serious about acting when he went to the California Institute of the Arts and received a Bachelor's degree in fine arts.

"Then I started working professionally, but it changes all the time. I have a family now, and kids. Now I look at a job and wonder if I can be away for three months. When we did Hotel Rwanda I was able to take the kids and put them in school there, so they had this whole great experience. But they're seven and nine now, so I can't see too much more of, 'Hey, let's take them out of school,' and that."

Asked about acting in general, Cheadle says, "Maybe I'm just neurotic, obsessing, but I'm always concerned that I'm doing too much or too little. If you're standing outside looking at it like, 'Ohhh -- I'm doing it,' then you're not in it. And if you're in it, doing it, you don't get to know if you're doing it or not. You just get the neurosis of thinking, 'I hope I'm doing it.' It's a weird profession."

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