'Oscar nod a career booster'
2006-02-14 11:32
Los Angeles - Best supporting actor Oscar nominee Matt Dillon said on Monday that his role as a bigoted policeman in the racially-charged drama Crash had breathed new life into his career.
Dillon, 41, won his first Academy Award nomination ever for the role in Paul Haggis' low-budget movie about four strangers whose lives unexpectedly collide in a single incident in Los Angeles.
"Has it (the nomination) invigorated my career? Yeah," said the dark-haired Dillon at the 25th anniversary luncheon for Oscar nominees in Beverly Hills.
Dillon first became known for his roles as troubled teenagers and then went on to achieve a measure of fame in films such as To Die For (1995), in which he played Nicole Kidman's husband, and in the hit 1998 comedy There's Something About Mary.
"It's really awesome," he said of attending his first nominees' luncheon at which he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Steven Spielberg, George Clooney and Brokeback Mountain stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Dillon said the appeal of Crash was that it touched a nerve deep in people all over the world.
"It's really an American story - the landscape is very particular to Los Angeles in a certain way, but so much of it is also universal," he said of the themes of racial tension and prejudice.
"There are racial problems in Europe as well - look what happened in France recently," he said.
Dillon admitted that he had initially feared that fans may confuse him with his role as a brutal cop in Crash, but soon realised that most saw the difference between the actor and his character.