Michael Pitt looks like a baby-faced Leo and shares Brad's Last name. "Yeah, I'm really screwed", he says with a laugh. After playing Henry, the quarterback who pines for Michelle Williams on "Dawson's Creek," he says he's now co-starring with Anna Paquin and Sean Connery in Gus van Sant's prep school drama Finding Forrester.

Q: Where are you from?

A: My mothers womb! (laughs) I grew up in West Orange, New Jersey. that was rough. I came to New York City when I was 16 with two cents and a ball of lint. I didn't even have a place to stay. I got a job as a bike messenger.

Q: Isn't that lowest of low jobs in the Big Apple?

A: I had to go to the worst paying messenger place too. No one would hire me 'cause I was 16. They thought I was saving up to buy a Nintendo.

Q: How did you get into acting?

A: When I was 10 I told my parents I wanted to be an actor and they sent me to this acting school they couldn't afford so I had to work in the morning-set up chairs and stuff. And for a while, I was studying at the Americans Academy of Dramatics Arts.

Q: How did you get recurring role on "Dawson's Creek"?

A: Someone from "Dawson's" saw me in the play The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek.

Q: The "Dawson's paychecks must've been nice.

A: I was so grateful to be on that show and have food in my stomach. It was the best paycheck I ever had. But it wasn't really challenging. I have the advantage of never having had money, so I know how live on nothing.

Q: Do you have many fans?

A: 12-year-old girls looking at me like I'm a hood ornament.

Q: Do you get compared to other actors?

A: I've always been compared to Dicaprio, which I'm hoping people will get over. I mean, he's a great actor, but...I'm not Titanic.

Q: Why did you want to make Finding Forrester?

A: I think it's critical to do a complete 180 and step away from the "teen- heartthrob-sensitive-football-player-who-sings-Bruce-Springsteen-and- likes-orchids" kind of character. In this film I was play a normal guy.