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HOLLYWOOD -- For a guy who wants to be independent and alone, he sure is a company boy.
That's Jason Patric, who figuratively sings the tune Solitary Man, but out of key and not very convincingly.
Patric would be Kiefer Sutherland's former friend, who skipped town with Sutherland's bride-to-be Julia Roberts.
Recently, everybody associated with Speed 2: Cruise Control was in denial over Patric's alleged love liaison with co-star Sandra Bullock. In between, he's had lots of relationships more media friendly than not.
What does Bullock say about Patric's present and his past?: "He gets dragged through the dirt sometimes because he doesn't play the Hollywood game."
Until recently, Patric didn't play in the Hollywood movie industry either.
That changed last year with Sleepers, where he co-starred with Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. This summer, he's the replacement for Keanu Reeves in Jan De Bont's Speed 2 as Bullock's L.A.P.D. boyfriend, who tries to save the day aboard a hijacked Caribbean cruise ship.
Actually, rumors of Patric dating Bullock on the set of Speed 2 were almost as odd as remembering that Patric was in Speed 2.
Certainly, the movie industry was surprised with Patric's selection and that he selected it. Says Bullock with a mischievous giggle, "I've known Jason for a little bit, and y'know what, he's easily bought." She's kidding, of course. The conventional wisdom was that he couldn't, and wouldn't, be bought ever.
Once upon a time, he was known as the son of playwright Jason Miller, grandson to Jackie Gleason. With acclaimed roles in commercial failures like The Lost Boys, Rush, After Dark, My Sweet and The Journey Of August King, Patric also became known professionally for choosing to be unemployed rather than under-achieved.
His Sleepers-Speed 2 tandem seems to have changed all that. Even Patric admits he's going through a major career transition.
"I have had these opportunities before," says Patric of starring in action movies and high-profile features. "But I looked at it like this: I turned 30 not long, and I decided if I'm ever going to make these things, I'm going to do it now when I'm young and reasonably fit."
Bullock's happy he did. Not only are they good buddies, but Patric saved her from serious injury during an underwater harbor sequence that went on too long. "He got me out of the water just in time," says Bullock.
So what's next for the actor who still finds time to say, "I don't like big wasteful movies," and "The worst movies ever made in the history of cinema have been made in the last 10 years."
Next is thinking over his options. He has them, he says. He always did.
"I could've done The Firm, but I chose not to," Patric says. "I've always come from creative, and figured the career would follow." It was, he reports, the cover-boy mentality that made people assume he wasn't successful.
"Most people think that because you aren't on the cover of People or Vanity Fair, they haven't been asking," he says.
So, can Jason Patric, the private one, find public happiness as an action movie star and an independent character-driven actor. "Yes," he says solemnly, "you can still do that, and be in the boat movie."