On the French Riviera, Michael Pitt, dressed in a T-shirt, tat-tered jeans and sneakers, finds himself standing on the balcony of the Hotel du Cap - an enlisted five star, cash only palace carved into the side of the rocky bluff situated between Nice and Monaco. He's looking out into a spectacular view of glittering blue ocean reflecting the equally expansive sky above. Discreet waiters in white jackets look at him warily as they float by with frothy drinks on silver trays. He gives them a friendly nod even though they are probably the same ones who wouldn't let him into the dining room without a jacket last night. He lights up a cigarette and mulls his immediate destiny. He is here on the cushy tab of Tinsel Town's entry, Murder by Numbers, which is screening at the Cannes Film Festival, tomorrow night, he and costars Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling will walk down the red carpet in front of a thousand blazing cameras. And then there is his other life.

"Which is why being here is so surreal," says Pitt, his gentle voice still worn from jet lag. "A few days ago, i'm in my apartment in Brooklyn, in the hood, playing my guitar, writing music, trying to get my cat to chase out this family of mice that lives in my stove. Unsuccessfully." He display his scratched hand. "Now i'm in the south of France, staying in a place where I feel like I should've registered under an assume name. I mean, i'm, from New Jersey. I thought they just made movies about thse kinds of places." He laughs, "I guess that's the only way I ever thought i'd get here."

In the space of time it takes for some to order dinner, the New Jersey high-school dropout has gone from bike messenger to artsy Manhattan stage actor to Dawson's Creek babe and star pick for Bernardo Bertolucci's newest film, The Dreamers, a period piece in which he plays an American caught up in the violence during the infamous 1960's student riot in Paris. "It is an amazing project on a really important subject,"he recounts.

"We actally recreated some of the riot scenes. Tear gas. Police clubing. It was pretty scary. At one point. During the shooting, a girl hair caught on fire and Bertolucci woundn't call cut. He filmed it. Now that takes balls. I hope i've got those kind of balls."

That may be tested in the very near future, but what Pitt does have is that ineffable something that makes him hard to classify and impossible not to notice. Even jewelry designer David Yurman handpicked him for his new advertsing campaigne. Perhaps that is because the boy with one of the most beautiful faces in Hollywood has cannily stayed away from special effects movies about demonically possessed teenagers who strangle their girlfriends or giddy, fast-money comedies where the hero tries to lose his virginity in fruit pies-and though he's got a great earthy voice and recorded "a raw, sloopy, amazing," five-song EP in France following his Dreamers stint-he hasn't looked to platform his passion into a road movie where the hero wants to be a singer. That's not to say he hasn't had his integrity tested or done his share of industry parties, when it's not incommon for strangers to offer him drugs or sex and press their bussiness cards into his back pocket. In his short career-he just turned 21-Pitt has already seen all the tangled ways people can respond to a prodigy's gift: change it, pervert it, own it.

In the flesh, it's not like Pitt tries to be aloof or imposing studly. Sitting in a chair, he tucks his legs in so his chin can rest on his knee if he need to be. His fair hair falls into his face just enough to require regular pushing away. And his liquid eyes, although piercing, wander down to his shoes or the tip of his cigarette when excited conversation leaves him feeling vulnerable and the shyness comes on. But onscreen where it all begins: Ryan Gosling's cheery psycho in Murder by Numbers goes toe to toe with Pitt's rock'n'rool kisses; in Bully, as Donny the stoner boy, he is an tegral link in a hypnotic ensemble who creates a white-trash fever dream of waste and sorrow. But it's Pitt you find yourself waiting for, it's Pitt you are drawn to watch. His movements are smallest, his stillness is deepest, his lines are tossed farthest away. No matter the terrain, he can transform a grab bag of stereotypes into an achingly lyrical portrait of misfit stumbling into the unknown territories. His acting is effortless, in the best way, seemingly unschooled, which may be what makes people fall in love with him. It's as if he were a tailsmen, imbued with mystical magic, secret powers. How else can he explains his unnerving affinity for troubled, complicated characters?

"Life experience, maybe," cracks Pitt. "I didn't graduate high school. I did bad stuff, drugs and other things. My parents kicked me out at 16. So I went to the city and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts." He hesitate, "I sound like a million other chessy stories, I know, but since I was a kid, acting is what I wanted to do. I bummed around, couch-surfed for awhile, met some other kids who were in similar situations, and shared a loft for awhile in Chinatown. It wasen't fantasic. It's only now I realize how lucky I was. I was in a lot of sketchy situations. But it did teach me how to deal with the Hollywood mentality. Some of them are just a bunch of crack-head drug addicts with cell phones. I know how to handle it, but I don't like being around that." He smiles, leans forward, pushing his hair away from his face. "Although I wouldn't mind bumming a cigarette from you if you had one."