( continues...) amazing phenomenon that it turned out to be. He loved the books and did everything he could to get the part."

But while Wood gained respect as an actor for his bravura performance as the heroic Frodo, playing a diminutive hobbit with hairy feet isn't exactly a ticket to leading-man status, especially for an actor who is still transitioning into a grown-up onscreen. "It's not like he bulked up and went romantic in 'Spider-Man,"' one talent agent says.

David did recommend that Wood accept several mainstream studio offers, but "he didn't like them," she says. "He does things because he believes in them and loves them." Thus Wood has embraced a range of weird and comedic roles in a series of indie films, including "Everything Is Illuminated," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Hooligans," "Sin City" and "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over." His next roles couldn't be more diverse: He's voicing a penguin in George Miller's upcoming computer-animated feature "Happy Feet"; joining the sprawling ensemble in "Bobby," Emilio Estevez's accounting of the assassination of Robert Kennedy; and next year plans to inhabit the outrageous punk persona of Iggy Pop. Now that should erase Frodo from moviegoers' minds.

The "Rings" actor who has zoomed from zero to 100 in 60 seconds is Bloom. The handsome Brit jumped into the Tolkien adaptations fresh out of drama school, and he hasn't looked back. But even at 28, he is still finding himself as an actor. Clearly, the studios recognized his huge appeal to all the young girls who fell in love with him as the ethereally blond elf archer, Legolas. But while he has worked with A-list directors in a series of big-budget pictures, some have deployed him more effectively than others. A small role in Ridley Scott's "Blackhawk Down" yielded the starring role in Scott's less commercial "Kingdom of Heaven," which did not appeal to Bloom's female fan base. He delivered as Keira Knightley's hapless knave in Gore Verbinski's "Pirates of the Caribbean" (two sequels are upcoming) and was laudably willing to play the nonheroic, weak-chinned Paris in "Troy."

Bloom takes chances in his latest, "Elizabethtown." Playing an American for the first time, he also is depressed and passive as a sneaker designer who has just wasted eight years creating a huge flop. Just as he is considering suicide, his father dies, and he finds himself meeting the Kentucky branch of his family. The movie's longer cut met a decidedly mixed reception at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, but so far Crowe's shorter version isn't earning Bloom better reviews. "Leading-man Bloom, a charmer in action spoofs such as 'Pirates of the Caribbean,' doesn't supply the kind of comic charm this movie needs; he's not the latter-day Jack Lemmon Crowe wanted," Chicago Tribune critic Michael Wilmington writes.

In the near term, unfortunately, Bloom is likely to face some of the same criticism that McConaughey suffered. "Orlando has gotten roles he never would have gotten in his life," one agent says. "People get pushed too far too fast. He's a boy, not a man. He should be doing leads in smaller films where he can be wonderful and work his way up, so that his acting catches up to his beauty." (Bloom's indie efforts to date, the very British mock docu "The Calcium Kid" and "Haven," have not received stateside release, and another British comedy, "Love and Other Disasters," is still to come.)

The only "Rings" actor to return to the set of the next Peter Jackson movie is Serkis, who acts the title role in "King Kong" as the outsized ape who falls in love with Naomi Watts. Although he will not be visible onscreen, there's no question he acted the role opposite Kong's love interest. Jackson's team at Weta Digital plastered Serkis with reflective markers, filmed his performance with 52 video cameras and fed the results into a computer. Animators then reproportioned him to turn him into the mighty Kong.

Serkis might never be the marquee attraction (continued...)

( continues...) that his "Rings" co-stars are in the process of becoming, but by allowing Jackson, quite literally, to turn him into an 800-pound gorilla, he is guaranteed the biggest of the post-"Rings" hits of any of his former cast members.

Next up is the starring role in the $28 million Spanish-language swashbuckler "Alatriste."

Ooooooooh.

I can't wait for Alatriste.

I've had plans with friends to go out for Tapas and see the movie ever since we first heard about it -- something like two years ago.

Of course, given that it's IN Spanish -- what's the likelihood that it will be released over here?

The media jumped all over Matthew McConaughey after John Sayles' "Lone Star," as the actor landed a series of studio gigs in Joel Schumacher's "A Time to Kill," Steven Spielberg's "Amistad" and Robert Zemeckis' "Contact."

Point of order -- "Lone Star" and "A Time To Kill" were released the same summer, and IIRC within about 2 weeks of each other. It's possible, even likely, that Sayles finished filming and was shopping around footage of America's Next Top Model Vanity Fair Cover in time for Joel Schumacher's casting directors to see it, but he would never have gotten the cover of Vanity Fair with "Lone Star" alone.

McConaughey's role was showy and charismatic, but also about 8 minutes of a 2 hour film. That movie belonged to Chris Cooper, lock stock and barrel.

(There's a whole separate topic involved in why there is an annually-anointed New Summer Face, and how many of these survive. Because I think Gretchen Mol is the poster child for poster child syndrome.)

there is an annually-anointed New Summer Face

Which wouldn't be Bloom, since he was anointed at the start of winter, pretty much. By the time June came around, he had a huge fanbase of squealing women.

I think his acquisition of rolse has been quite freakish, but I think he's not like MM in that I'm pretty sure he had a hella fanbase before anyone had a chance to drop him all over the big mags and get him huge roles.

Wasn't McConaughey's breakout role in Dazed and Confused? I think he was the only one out of that ensemble to hit it big.

Ben Affleck.

As well, I mean.

If you don't count that Affleck kid, sure.

(not that I remember enough about the movie to know the relative sizes of the roles...)

From McConaughey's IMDB listing, it doesn't look like he broke for a little while longer.