LOS ANGELES -- Ving Rhames doesn't mind that he's become one of Hollywood's favorite second fiddles, playing a string of supporting roles to the likes of Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage.
Rhames, who mentions God as often as other people pepper conversation with the phrase "you know," says he's really co-pilot to his life and career, anyway. God, says Rhames, runs the show."I feel God has blessed me with a talent that I'm trying to cultivate," Rhames said in an interview to promote "Mission: Impossible 2," in which he reprises his role as Cruise's computer and surveillance cohort, Luther Stickell.
"I think God had and has a plan for me, and whatever it is I'm supposed to do while I'm on this planet, acting is going to be a big part of it. I would say I'm a vessel for the spirit of a character or the spirit of God."
Not the words you might expect from an actor who came to mainstream attention as a sinister crime boss tussling with Bruce Willis in "Pulp Fiction."
The menace of that character seems far away; Rhames was speaking while wrapped in an apron in a Four Seasons hotel suite, where hairdressers were applying a hair weave for a new movie.
"You're just jealous of my long, beautiful hair," says the actor, who has appeared with head shaved in many roles.
Rhames won a Golden Globe in 1998 for his lead in HBO's "Don King: Only in America" and gained even more celebrity when he gave it to fellow nominee Jack Lemmon at the ceremony. He stars as a drag queen in "Holiday Heart," shooting now in Vancouver to air this fall on Showtime, then will star as boxing champion Sonny Liston in "Night Train," produced by Cruise's film company and Paramount, which is releasing "Mission: Impossible 2."
Mostly, however, he has landed a solid run of supporting roles, to Cage in Martin Scorsese's "Bringing Out the Dead," to Connery in "Entrapment," to Clooney in Steven Soderbergh's "Out of Sight." He lucked out with "Mission: Impossible"; other than Cruise's Ethan Hunt, Rhames' character was the only one to survive the bloodbath of the first movie and live on for the sequel.
Rhames, 39, has broken out of being typecast as a "Pulp Fiction"-style heavy, the guy producers seek when they need "that sort of big, baldheaded black guy," he says.
And he doesn't mind being typecast as a second fiddle.
"I feel very blessed and privileged to work as I do and to make the kind of money I make," Rhames said. "Be it supporting or lead role, that doesn't really affect me. And most of the time in films, the lead role is not the best-written role or the most interesting."
"If God wants George Clooney to call me and say, 'Ving, read this script,' and it's a good script, and they say, 'Ving, we'll get you at least $2 million,' Ving is no fool," Rhames said.
"To do a film where you don't have to work every day and get all the bonuses and pluses, and you get a very nice role that shows you differently, not the heavy, and you're working with a George Clooney or a Tom Cruise or a Nicolas Cage or a Martin Scorsese. I can live with that."
Raised in Harlem, Rhames played defensive secondary in youth-league football and thought about an athletic career. At the urging of an English teacher, he tried out for New York's Performing Arts high school, depicted in the "Fame" movie and TV series.
He was accepted and immediately started cutting classes to hang out with his friends in Harlem. But he knuckled down to acting studies late in his junior year, then went on to the Juilliard School.
During a break, Rhames studied at a state college in upstate New York, where he met Stanley Tucci, who dubbed him "Ving" (Rhames' real first name is Irving).
After graduating from Juilliard, Rhames did stage work, moved into TV movies and guest spots, and was picking up small but steady roles in theatrical films by the late 1980s.
His deep voice and imposing presence made him a standout in 1994's "Pulp Fiction." From watching him on screen, people tend to think of Rhames as a behemoth actor like Michael Clarke Duncan of "The Green Mile." Rhames said they're surprised when they meet him and discover he's only 6 feet tall, half a foot shorter than Duncan.
"What happens on screen, I believe, there's an energy inside of me that comes across. It's not me. It's something within me. I'm not that physically large," Rhames says.
Rhames has not had to play on his expansive presence as the computer geek of the "Mission: Impossible" movies. Despite the frenetic action choreographed by director John Woo, Rhames spends much of the movie at a portable computer while Cruise's character dodges bullets and trades punches.
The new movie has a more straightforward plot than the first one, with Cruise and the IMF trying to prevent a villain from unleashing a super-virus.
"My feeling is that the first one was a bit confusing, even though it did well at the box office," Rhames said. "I think with this one, they really decided, OK, everyone should be able to follow this film."
And will "Mission: Impossible 3" inevitably follow?
"The first one made, I think, $450 million worldwide," Rhames said. "What do you think, if this one makes $450 million? I think so."