Admit it -- you think Ryan Phillippe is just another pretty face.

He mostly registers on the movie-going consciousness as Mr. Reese Witherspoon. Married too young. Came off badly in that messy divorce. All those rumours about Abbie Cornish. Etc.

Now, a new movie called Stop-Loss may change the general perception of Phillippe. The actor came to Canada recently to promote Stop-Loss, a drama from director Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry) about soldiers forced back to Iraq. It's the very movie that began the Abbie Cornish rumours, and she co-stars in the film with Phillippe, as do Channing Tatum, Rob Brown, Victor Rasuk and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

The film concerns young men from Texas who finish their tour of duty in Iraq, only to discover they'll be sent back under Stop-loss, an involuntary extension of their enlistment contract. The reality of the Stop-loss policy affects thousands of American soldiers, and the film examines the terrible strain on the men who have to return to Iraq. Families are decimated, emotional health becomes even more fragile. The soldiers who refuse to return to the army can go to prison, live on the run or assume a new identity and move to Canada or Mexico. It's not a pretty picture.

Phillippe sits for this interview tapping one foot with nervous energy, and talking a mile a minute.

Last month, Ryan told W magazine that the end of his marriage to Witherspoon left him "in the darkest, saddest place" he'd ever been in. Phillippe said there were four or five months when he really couldn't get out of bed, and that it was the worst time of his life.

He knows that coverage of his personal life spills over into his work in the way people perceive him.

"Mystery is something we're losing as actors in this day and age. The less people know about you, the more they can accept you in anything you portray. That's what I hate about the whole media intrusion."

He sure had his share of such intrusion the past couple of years. The actor was married to Witherspoon, his co-star in Cruel Intentions, in 1999 and they have two children, Ava Elizabeth and Deacon. He and Witherspoon were divorced last October.

Phillippe says fatherhood has improved every aspect of his life, including work, because, as he told Man About Town magazine, "My life is fuller and more complicated, and I've experienced so many highs and lows."

You need cojones to be in a movie such as Stop-Loss, and Phillippe's had that covered since his first high-profile role -- in the early '90s he was daytime television's first gay teenager, Billy Douglas, on the soap One Life to Live. Now at age 33, Phillippe has been in 30 movies, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, 54, The Way Of The Gun, Gosford Park, Igby Goes Down, Crash, Flags Of Our Fathers and Breach. He's made some interesting choices.

"I do tend to gravitate toward more substantial films. I hope, when my children are older, they'll think their father took some chances, did some good work. The best films encourage thought, and help people see things in a different way. When I did Flags Of Our Fathers, that was a history lesson for me."

Regarding Stop-Loss, another war film, he says. "Most of the films we all know about war, about Vietnam especially, were made in retrospect, but this film was made while this policy is still in effect."

Phillippe grew up in Delaware with three sisters: Kirsten, Lindsay and Katelyn. His father is a chemist and his mother is a childcare worker. He became interested in acting at about age 15. On growing up with just sisters, he says, "I think it was a really great thing. It gave me an awareness and a sensitivity, and I think, an understanding not every man has."

He adds, smiling, "I always wanted a brother, but you find those in life."

Both of Phillippe's grandfathers fought in the Second World War, and several members of his family saw service in Vietnam.

"I've always had a healthy respect for servicemen and women because it was part of my family's history," he says. "With this film, I want to be provocative without being obnoxious. When the soldiers come back here, you want them to be treated with the respect they deserve."

Stop-Loss' subject matter is controversial, and under Kimberly Peirce's careful direction the movie does not pull its punches. There's no candy-coating, despite the pretty young cast. The film is educational and heartbreaking, and the story has an intensity that made fast friends of the cast.

"They all became buddies," Peirce says. "They got really close and they stayed that way. That camaraderie brought the work to another level. Ryan was the ringleader. They were always over at his house."

Phillippe also writes and produces. As for acting, he next will appear in the British science fiction film Franklyn with Eva Green and Sam Riley.

He is also scheduled to appear in Last Battle Dreamer, a love story and costume epic set against the 9th century Viking invasions of Britain. That film also co-stars Abbie Cornish; he will not confirm whether or not they are romantically involved, although he has said: "I don't think an outside person can ever cause a divorce. I had difficulties in my relationship, and in my marriage, long before I ever met her."