Keep a 'Lookout' for Matthew Goode

Hang on just one quick sec, if you would. Matthew Goode needs to light a cigarette.

Ahh, there we are. Great. Grand. Let's carry on then.

And incidentally, are you quite charmed yet?

You have, of course, called to mind a proper English accent, a set of cerulean eyes and a devilish your-father-might-hate-me-but-you-and-your-mum-will-definitely-adore-me smile, right?

Oh, you hadn't? Because you've never heard of him? Well, let's get cracking straight away to change all that.

A bit of Googling will place our chap in the same sentences as guys such as Hugh Grant and Brad Pitt, which should give you a frame of reference, though it might seem a touch premature and a little off-base, seeing as he has appeared in fewer than a half-dozen movies and in his latest, "The Lookout," (see review on Page 35) he plays the vile, skinheaded bad guy.

But never mind that for now. You've only just met, and he'd like the chance to woo you a bit before you decide he's a total monster.

Here, let him set a scene.

"I'm sitting here on the -- near the -- balcony -- the phone doesn't quite stretch, of course -- looking out over L.A. on a very beautiful, although slightly smoggy day. Slightly smoggy -- shock, horror," he says, words tumbling on top of one another. "And although I do appreciate the weather and stuff, it's not a town I feel that comfortable in. I'm much more a New York and London boy."

Fair enough. Luckily for him, the 28-year-old actor, who first hit theaters as Mandy Moore's boyfriend in "Chasing Liberty" (2004) and garnered more serious attention after landing the part of the spoiled little rich boy in Woody Allen's "Match Point" (2005), has never actually had to film a movie in Tinseltown.

But still, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's rewind things, so you'll understand how Goode came to be in Los Angeles on this slightly smoggy day.

He acted in small shows and school plays as a child. ("It was one of those things that I really enjoyed and hated at the same time. 'Cause I used to blush remarkable amounts," he says. "I'd be blushing onstage, knowing I was doing it but actually at the same time having fun.") Then came adolescence and a load of sports -- cricket, rugby, soccer, tennis -- followed by a need to study something in university.