Suddenly Loren Dean is hot, his agent's phone is ringing and he's encountering the distant early warning signals of fame.
For instance, just the other day, the young actor said, he was riding the M104 bus on Broadway, as he usually does, "and two different people came up to me and said, `Loren, right? From "Beggars" '?" He was referring to the new John Patrick Shanley play "Beggars in the House of Plenty."And that was before "Billy Bathgate. Dean has the title role in the film, an adaptation of an E.L. Doctorow novel starring Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman.
"This isn't exactly what I'm used to," said Dean, who landed his first stage role only two years ago and who has roamed New York in blissful anonymity. "Now, this word hot - it's a strange word to me. You go along and do your work and suddenly, they say you're hot."
How should a 22-year-old handle instant recognition? "It's a good idea for me to think about my work," he said with a laugh. That work has been celebrated by critics in "Beggars," Shanley's autobiographical coming-of-age drama about four decades in the life of a Bronx boy caught in the mania of a world-class dysfunctional family.
The show is to run through Dec. 1, and possibly longer, if demand for tickets continues.
"`Beggars' is a breakthrough for me, and so is `Billy,"' said Dean. In the movie, he plays the role of a street-wise teenager from the Bronx who becomes a flunkie for the mobster Dutch Schultz, and ultimately a trusted confidant.
In both the movie and "Beggars," Dean portrays Irish-American youths struggling for adulthood, and in both works the characters live in the Bronx and confront violent, unpredictable father figures as well.
"Loren is very smart to do a play right now, to take his mind off waiting for the movie to open, which could drive you out of your mind," said Shanley, the playwright, who also directed "Beggars." "It's important, when you're suddenly noticed, to worry about the work and not the celebrity."
Shanley has had his own encounter with fame, when he won an Academy Award for writing "Moonstruck" in 1988. "Yes, I endured all that," he said, "but I wasn't 22. I was 35 before I even had a write-up. At 22, I was a molecule."
Dean is definitely not a molecule. In "Beggars" he holds his own in some coruscating interactions with a cast that includes Dana Ivey, Jayne Haynes, Laura Linney, Jon Tenney and Daniel von Bargen.
"It's an impossible role," said Shanley of Dean's part, "since in the first act he goes from age 1 to 5, in the second act he's 16 to 18, and in the third act he speaks from the experience of a 40-year-old man in the presence of his father."
The actor said he found particularly painful the scenes in the final segment of "Beggars," which "take place in the inside of Johnny's head, where all his demons are, and where he must face them."
"I'm pretty drained by the play, emotionally, and vocally," he said, "because I shout a lot. But there's also something very purging about it. After it's over? I feel recharged."
Shanley said, "The remarkable thing about Loren is his self-assurance at such an early age." A lot of actors wanted the part in "Beggars," but "sometimes an actor comes in and just claims a role," Shanley said.
"It's not even the director's decision," he continued. "There's nothing you can do about it but accept it. Loren knew he had the role when he walked in the door - I didn't know it, but he did - and he sat down, picked up the script and did the scene."
In "Billy Bathgate," Dean found himself not only running lines with Dustin Hoffman but also playing a role that is central to the movie. "The character of Billy is the linchpin of the story," said Robert Benton, the film's director. The choice of the actor to play Billy was "absolutely critical" to the film, he said.
"I read the script, I read the book, and I just felt I knew this kid," Dean said of the role. "When you know something really well, there is an inner feeling of rightness. I felt, `I have a right to take this role.' It was tunnel vision. I didn't see anything else, other than being this kid."
His certainty was not immediately shared by the filmmakers. "Billy was supposed to be age 15, and I had to prove to them that I could be young enough," said Dean, who, with his square-shouldered, 5-foot-11-inch frame, can look decidedly adult when he needs to.
"I made sure I was so clean-shaven I looked as if I'd never shaved. I parted my hair a certain way, to look younger. I observed kids and tried to act like them, to have a freshness in auditions, and in talking and meeting with them. I couldn't let down that young mask for a second. I didn't want them to even be able to imagine me as older."
Dean is his real name, he says. He grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from Santa Monica High School, and came to New York at the age of 17 to study acting with Herbert Berghof and Sondra Seacat.
In his first theatrical role, he played Harold, a street hustler in Paul Zindel's "Amulets Against the Dragon Forces," and won a Theater World Award for his performance.
In films, Dean is best remembered for portraying Joe, the spaced-out West Coast high schooler in "Say Anything," a 1989 film.
"The character was a flake," Dean said, "and at that time - well, I wasn't exactly a flake, but I didn't know what I was doing and where I'd go next." He fixed his brown eyes on his interviewer. "That was then." And "Billy Bathgate" is now.