ERIC STOLTZ

By Camille Cozzone

Eric Stoltz opens the door to his Upper West Side apartment and smiles tentatively; the admittedly shy actor doesn't exactly relish interviews. Dressed in blue jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers, with his red hair, blue eyes and freckles, he looks very much the all-American boy-next-door he's often played. He's even in the middle of doing his laundry. How normal.

But don't be fooled. Stoltz is hardly your average guy. Acting since the age of nine (when he was typecast, he says, as Grumpy in a church production of Snow White), he's appreared in over 30 plays and a dozen or so films. A resident at one time or another of such diverse places as American Samoa, Rome, Edinburgh and his native Santa Barbara, he likes the migratory nature of acting and says he prefers a "Spartan existence"; he hasn't owned a television since 1979. He's also intensely private- talk about the work and you're okay, ask about private matters and you're on very thin ice. Stoltz is skittish when it comes to those things- "I don't really think your personal life has to be spread around like Cheez Whiz," he says.

To date, the reticent 27 year-old has appeared mainly in easy-on-the-intellect teen flicks like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Wild Life and Some Kind of Wonderful. His most notable role, the one that made him a name if not a recognizable face, was as the hideously deformed teenager Rocky in the 1985 film Mask. Though the movie's visibility was greatly enhanced by Cher's performance as Rocky's mother, Stoltz was widely acclaimed as a major young talent. Nothing he's done since,however, has had nearly the same impact.

Until now. Stoltz is currently nearing the end of a limited engagement that marks his Broadway debut, starring as George Gibbs in a 50th anniversary production of one of America's beloved plays, Thorton Wilder's Our Town. His performance as "this great, gangly red-headed youth", as he describes George, has won him nearly unanimous raves, and has out his back in the spotlight as one of our best young actors. Clive Barnes in the New York Post, describing both Stoltz and his female lead, Penelope Ann Miller, wrote, "I have rarely seen such intensely honest playing as these two offer in their famous declaration of love over Wilder's milkshake... or at the end of the play in Stoltz's final silent agony over the grave as a young man's first stumble over death."

Stepping into this legendary role (it's been played in the past by Paul Newman and William Holden, among countless others) was a graduation of sorts for Stoltz, who had a bit part as one of the newspaper boys in a Santa Barbara production of Our Town when he was 13. "The play has always moved me," he said before its opening. "Something about it connects with me and, as I'm sure it does with most people, reminds me of my own family's history. It really is the quintessential American play. There are such basic truths in it that we all have experienced at some point in our lives."

If there's a drawback to his success in Our Town, it's that Stoltz is again playing a not-quite-adult character, one that's been tagged through the years as the ultimate boy-next-door. But a look at his new crop of films shows this actor is definitely expanding his range to include a wider variety of roles.

Like the son of a fly, for instance. Yes Stoltz's latest film, just released, is The Fly II, in which he plays the offspring of Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, stars of the hit sci-fi remake, The Fly. The movie is surprisingly good, given the success rate of sequels, and at least as horrifying as its predecessor. Stoltz's transformation from man to insect is even more disturbing then that of his "father." There's already a weirdness about Goldblum, in his natural, human state, but to watch this sweet, gentle, classically cute boy turn into a grotesque creature...It's just too horrible. There's a neat twist to the ending, however, that turns tragedy into triumph.

Stoltz rejected the script in its first version, but was eventually drawn to the rewrite for a number of reasons, one of which was the challenge of doing something he wasn't naturally inclined to do. "It's a frightening film, which interests me because I don't particularly enjoy going to that kind of movie," says Stoltz, who admits to having ducked behind his seat during The Fly. "But I thought it would be sort of a challenge to do something I'm not initially attracted to. Now I can say I've done that."

He also liked the idea this particular character would have to be drawn largely from his imagination. For Stoltz, who's a stickler for extensive preparation, there wasn't a lot of research he could do. "Aside from watching Life on Earth and National Geographic insect specials, and maybe reading Kafka's Metamorphosis," he laughs, "it really was left to the imagination, which is fun."

The film co-stars the beautiful Daphne Zuniga, but it's not, says Stoltz, a love story in the way The Fly was. "Actually, it could be looked at as a quirky comment on corporate genetic engineering," he explains. "While we were making the film, which deals with toying with life forms basically, scientists patented the first life form in the United States that they had created -which is very disturbing if you take it to its ultimate end. I think there are some areas in the world that man was not meant at this time to tinker with."

But where do you draw the line? "I don't know," confesses Stoltz. "Conversely there can be some knowledge that they gain from it that can be used to help save lives. So I don't know, bit it disturbs me. I can't deny that."

In addition to starring in The Fly II, Stoltz was recently busy in Europe working on two other films of a less commercial nature- Haunted Summer, in which he plays the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Manifesto, in which he plays a postal clerk embroiled in an assassination plot in Eastern Europe in the 1920s. The fate of both movies is uncertain because of distribution problems, but Stoltz doesn't seem too bothered by that. "Those two movies, really, are dear to my heart. I had ideal experiences making them," he says. "It was a year of perfect moments, one after another. We did Haunted Summer in Italy and then I did Manifesto in Yugoslavia, with two great directors and great casts. I became a different person through them, and that means so much to me."

One of the many rewards of acting, for Stoltz, is being able to immerse himself in other cultures and other lives. Having dropped out of USC, where he studied drama and literature. Stoltz now welcomes the opportunity to delve into philosophies that interest him. The thought espoused by Shelley, for example, could keep him talking for hours. "He had a number of theories that were quite radical in 1816 and are still radical today," says Stoltz. "For instance, his belief in free, nonpossessive love, the idea that is you're in love with someone, ultimately what you desire is their happiness, and if it would make them happy to be with someone else, you give them your blessing rather than becoming jealous and possessive. It goes against almost all our training and conditioning in terms of relationships. Shelley's point was that marriage is a man-made law trying to regulate passion and that human passion is irrational. I don't know if I agree with him, but it really generates some thought."

It also begs the question: Does the freewheeling Stoltz ever see himself settling down? "I do fantasize about it occasionally," he admits, "but I'm a firm believer that you should wait until you're at least in your 30's- at least. I think I should wait until I'm in my 30s, because I think maybe by then my personality will be developed."

Stoltz laughs, flashing his best boy-next-door smile. But typically, he's less than forthcoming when it comes to specific relationships, regardless of their marriage potential. "There are areas that I try to keep to myself," he explains. "They're confusing enough to me. Relationships, especially, are such fragile, fraught, complex things that I'm totally confused. It's the last thing I'm clear about, so why on earth would I want to talk about or share that with anyone?"

But what about the fans? Don't they feel a little cheated by an actor who refuses to allow the public a glimpse of his or her personal life? "I really think the only thing an actor owes the public is good work," Stoltz answers thoughtfully. "If you have a Robert DeNiro on one hand and a Robin Givens on the other, who would you want to be? I'd rather be the DeNiro." So much for the Cheez Whiz.

As for future career plans, Stoltz is wide open at the moment. He'd like to do some more traveling, though. Maybe to Spain, or to Bali. Spalding Gray, one of his co-stars in Our Town, has been telling him a lot of great Bali stories. But the destination seems less important than the idea of just keeping in motion.

"It doesn't matter where the train is going," says this happy wanderer. "I'll take it."