A young actor who once trifled with the Catholic church now toys with a transsexual in the summer's biggest gay film.

Soft-spoken and possessed of an ethereal beauty rarely seen outside the frame of a Pre-Rapuelite painting. Michael looks too delicate to cause a stir. But as a glam rock boy toy who kisses and disses a transsexual crooner played by John Cameron Mitchell in this months Hediwg and the Angry Inch. "You want a bad story?" The ex-Dawson's Creeker asked naughtily. "I wasn't an angel as a kid. I was a troublemaker. I got kicked out of, like, three schools." At 14, Pitt's sins got him chucked by one Catholoic Academy after just three months there. "I got kicked out on purpose," he says. "They had a huge mass every now and then, with bishops and cardinals. It was a big deal. So during communion I grabbed the wine chalice, I turned around to face the shcool, and chugged it. Then I handed it back to the priest - and got dragged out by the ear."

Six years after this bit of heretical fun, the 20 year old still enjoys a sip of vino, as evidence by the cabernet he consumed during a recent interviw. As Pitt reflects on his current exploits, he admits he was slightly nervous about filming his ravenous make-out scene with Michell in Hedwig, which first won raves as an Off-Broadway musical. "It was a little difficult." Pitt says of the spicy scene. "I want to say it wasn't but it was. I was insecure with a lot of people on set. And John's cool, except he gave me razor burn. He was in drag, but he had 5 O'clock shadow. It was painful, I was thinking that when I'm kissing my girlfriend, she must go through hell."

Fortunately, the shy actor's friends often help put him at ease. His pal Gus Van Sant, who directed him and Sean Connery in Finding Forrester, even volunteered to do this Out photo shoot. Asked how thier rooftop shutterbug went, he just smiles and dreamily muses, "At one point I got pretty drunk and started playing guitar, and I think Gus was taking pictures of me then, but I wasn't sure. I was just kind of lost."