NEW YORK -- With his string of sexy roles, Ryan Phillippe has caused many a heart to flutter.

"It's just acting. These characters couldn't be further from who I am. I'm not obsessed with my body," insists Phillippe, about his stripped down roles in I Know What You Did Last Summer, 54 and White Squall.

In the drama Playing by Heart, that opens Friday, Phillippe plays Keenan an introverted young man, who hangs out in trendy clubs, but refuses to socialize.

His aloofness is too much for Joan, a true party animal played by Angelina Jolie.

Joan pursues Keenan until he opens up his troubled heart.

"Playing by Heart is really a romantic mystery. Our characters are just pieces in a very complicated puzzle," says Phillippe.

"It's one of the most ingenious scripts I've read, which is why I wanted to be a part of the project."

It didn't hurt that Phillippe's co-stars were people such as Sean Connery, Gena Rowlands, Ellen Burstyn, Gillian Anderson, Dennis Quaid, Madeleine Stowe and Anthony Edwards.

"The company doesn't get much better. You dream of having one of these people as a co-star, not all of them in the same movie."

Phillippe, 24, is used to starring with contemporaries such as Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon and Selma Blair, his co-stars in Cruel Intentions, a sexy update of Dangerous Liaisons.

Phillippe plays the Valmont character.

"He's a real cad. Sarah Michelle plays my step-sister. Sarah Michelle and I got the script while we were filming I Know What You Did Last Summer and were allowed a great deal of input.

"It feels so rewarding to be so involved in a project."

One of Phillippe's suggestions was the casting of Witherspoon, who is his live-in girlfriend.

"We met at Reese's 21st birthday two years ago. I went with a friend because I knew there would be free food and drinks.

"It was a pretty intense, emotional connection that happened between Reese and me.

"It's one reason I wanted her to play my love interest in Cruel Intentions. That relationship is the emotional heart of the film."

Phillippe says he is grateful to Witherspoon for being his emotional anchor in real life.

"Reese is a happy, light-hearted person. I tend to be considerably darker. She keeps me from getting dark and depressed and that's so essential in a business that's based on uncertainty and insecurity."

Phillippe was born in New Castle, Delaware.

It was a neighbour who suggested to Phillippe's mother that the angelic looking teenager could make money doing commercials.

Two years later, at age 17, Phillippe left for New York. It took just seven months for him to land a role on One Life to Live, where he played daytime's first gay character.

Two years later, he headed for Los Angeles.

"It was a rude awakening. I had to struggle to get jobs.

"I did bit parts in episodes of Due South and Chicago Hope to pay the rent. I got so desperate that I did a terrible TV movie called Deadly Invasion about killer bees.

"I grew a goatee and wore sunglasses in the hopes casting directors wouldn't recognize me the next time I came to auditions."

"The closest I came to doing a porno movie was starring in Greg Araki's Nowhere, so I count myself lucky. My first good film role was in White Squall."

Phillippe says if his career takes a turn he'd like to: "Go back to school. ... Go to New York and do a play."


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