`Heights' of talent: Marsden embraces provocative role as sexually conflicted lawyer
Source: Boston Herald
By: Stephen Schaefer

The film ``Heights'' (opening tomorrow) explores the New York arts scene through the eyes of hungry artists. The ensemble cast features three young performers who are already making their mark on the big screen.

     As the mutant Cyclops in the two ``X-Men'' hits, James Marsden is most noted for those wraparound shades. With ``Heights'' (opening tomorrow), it's the eye-popping nude photos that get him into trouble with his fiancee (Elizabeth Banks).

     As a Manhattan lawyer about to marry the photographer daughter of a legendary star (Glenn Close), Marsden's Jonathan wants to keep the photos - and a possible gay affair - a secret.

     ``There's an innate part of Jonathan that is struggling with his sexual identity,'' Marsden said. ``It's confusing because it contradicts what most of the time he feels, which is really true love for this woman. But intermittently, it surfaces, this attraction to men.''

     Like many of Hollywood's darkly handsome hunks, Marsden, who's married, has a gay following. But ``Heights'' wasn't done to please his gay fans.

     ``I wish that I could say that that was calculated, but it was really just something that I responded to. I'm extremely grateful to have that following,'' he said.

     As for that fully nude shot in ``Heights,'' it isn't him.

     ``Because the way that the movie's cut, you see a close-up of me in the photography book, which is from the waist up, and then it cuts back to Glenn Close's face, and then back to the book, and you see the opposite page, which is somebody who is fully nude - and that was not me. Although I should tell people that it probably is, because the guy is gifted, sure,'' he said, then laughing.

     Marsden is now in Australia for the $200 million ``Superman Returns.''

     ``It's the idea that Superman has gone. He has left the country and the world. Then he returns, and it's how the world has changed, how and where he fits in after having been gone for six years and where his relationship is with Lois Lane. Lois has basically moved on. She's gotten engaged; I play her fiance.''