Living the life of Riley

AFTER his raw, revelatory performance in Control, it's a surprise to find Sam Riley cast as a romantic lead in his new film, Franklyn. It's the kind of jolt you'd experience if Mickey Rourke followed up The Wrestler by appearing in a Richard Curtis Britcom.

"I'm still at the stage of going for films and then finding Justin Timberlake has beaten me to it," says Riley. "So with Franklyn I was happy to play whatever they wanted because it was a film I wanted to be involved in. It's an unusual movie."

As a man haunted by visions of a childhood sweetheart after being jilted at the altar, Riley is the most accessible character in this noirish thriller. A sometimes grandiose Twilight Zone episode split between modern London and a future world dominated by religions, Franklyn is dense, chewy stuff until a single bullet brings together the film's four apparently disconnected personalities.

"You come out of it going: 'I'm not really sure what I've just seen,'" says Riley. "It's the alternative to the alternative."

Tall, skinny, sloe-eyed and still only 29, Riley resembles Fergal Sharkey's better looking kid brother, or a European 1960s film star. Film directors are not the only ones to cotton on to his distinctive looks; Burberry signed him up last year for their autumn and winter campaigns, "But that doesn't make me a model," he says. He accepted the work because he wanted to be able to pick and choose his film roles after Control. Franklyn is his first choice; his next one is the Russian roulette drama 13, where he stars opposite Mickey Rourke, Ray Winstone and 50 Cent.

"Mickey Rourke is barking, but in a good way," he says. "I don't think he'd mind me saying that because I loved The Wrestler. He's a brilliant actor, and I loved his old films but it's odd seeing him with his Chihuahua. She came on set with him every day. When I was about to film quite a private but emotional scene, he told me to put a photograph of my dad in my pocket and just touch it when I was doing the scene. He was everything I hoped he'd be. I honestly thought I'd died and gone to heaven on that film. In the mornings Ray Winstone and I would share a car to the set, and he'd talk my ear off with his stories. And 50 Cent was great; we're friends now, so I call him Two Bob."

Riley, who grew up in Leeds, was always drawn to acting. "Even as a kid, someone would suggest we play at being gangsters and I'd rush off saying: 'I must dress' and come back in a suit with a drawn-on moustache."

He did the usual school plays, joined the National Youth Theatre, and gathered a smattering of small television parts, plus a small role as Mark E Smith in 2002's 24 Hour Party People. After that performance ended up on the cutting room floor, he all but gave up on acting in favour of his band, until the rock-star dream imploded and Riley's 10,000 Things were dumped by their record label as a result of industry politics and some lethal reviews.

"I ended up working in a clothes warehouse two years ago, and thought I should call my agent because even acting has got to be better than folding shirts. She was quite surprised to hear from me, because our last conversation had been four years ago," says Riley.

"I genuinely thought there might be something in the new Bond movie, so I asked if they'd cast James Bond yet, and she said: 'Yes, they have, sweetheart, but they are doing an Ian Curtis movie if you want to go to Manchester on Wednesday for open auditions.'"

Riley figured he had little to lose by trying out for Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn's feature directorial debut, Control. Corbijn wanted Riley, but the film producers, who had hoped for Cillian Murphy or Jude Law, did not. In the end, the director remortgaged his house to secure funds and give Riley the role.

Control changed everything for him, he says. We last met at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, where he won an award for Best Actor, but he can barely remember the day. "I went into a daze when they announced I'd won. I think I only came to on the plane home." Riley's performance took everybody by surprise, but he went on to be nominated as a rising star by Bafta, catching the eye of Franklyn's writer/director Gerald McMorrow.

After falling in love with his Control co-star Alexandra Maria Lara, he now commutes between film sets and his new home in Berlin, where Alexandra is regarded as a combination of Keira Knightley and Kate Winslet, with arthouse successes such as Downfall, about the last days of Hitler, and The Baader Meinhof Complex. Most recently, she appeared in The Reader. She gives him balance, he says, and Germany's laid-back approach to celebrity also takes the pressure off.

"They're quite good about fame over there," he says. "They know who my girl is, but we don't get followed by cameras. Apart from that, Germany feels quite like Britain – except for their sense of humour." The couple got engaged last year and live quietly in Charlottenburg between films, with Riley getting to grips with the language by watching The Simpsons. ("Alex gets really embarrassed when I speak German because when I'm ordering two cokes and a wiener schnitzel, I can't help sounding like a war commandant.") Both of them would like to work together again, he says, and one of the lessons he's learnt is that if you want something – whether it is a film, a girl, or a film with the girl – then you have to be proactive.

"I've written to Quentin Tarantino," he says. "The idea is that Alex and I do Bonnie And Clyde but he's not written back yet. I may have to phone."

* Franklyn is released February 27