Scott Speedman’s come a long way since playing Ben in “Felicity.”
He’s been a werewolf (“Underworld”), government agent (“xXx: State of the Union”) and murder victim (“The Strangers”), to name a few big-screen roles.
In Atom Egoyan’s “Adoration,” which opens Friday, he’s an ordinary guy – sort of.
Now sporting a beard, Speedman is Tom, uncle of an orphaned teen. The boy writes a fictional story for school, portraying his dead father as a terrorist. Controversy erupts when the essay is put on the Internet.
Tom, who has sacrificed a lot to care for the boy, is “an older guy, and Atom couldn’t get his head around it for a while that it could be played younger. I had to convince him,” Speedman said.
The character was intriguing because “I could relate to him. There’s a certain mystery, a pain. Something quite sad about the guy,” he said.
Speedman, 33, noted that “Relative to my calling, I’ve been around. I feel much more a veteran.
“But there was a period of my life when this became intimidating. I wasn’t liking getting more famous and normal life sort of appealed to me. In a way I took myself out of the picture and was traveling more and trying to have a life outside the business.”
Is he ready for marriage and children?
“There are certain things. I decided to live a certain life at 19,” he said, “and L.A. is not the easiest way to meet a nice, young lady.”
