Maguire and Reese Witherspoon are now the youthful co-stars of "Pleasantville," a unique fable that transplants an unhappy Nineties brother and sister into the black-and-white world of a Fifties TV sitcom. It opens October 23.

It's another example of Maguire and Witherspoon steering clear of the "Dawson's Creek" and "Scream" crowd and playing more prominent parts in a picture with more universal appeal -- even if we're smack dab in a bull market for teen horror and teen angst.

Partly because of this strategy, and partly because they're both big talents, you'd need a freight train to stop these two careers. Which gives them pause, because they're a couple of thoughtful, postmodern kids who've already had more than a dalliance with our cannibalistic celebrity culture. Maguire has a front-row seat in the Leo circus currently playing internationally, and he has mixed emotions about what fame has done to DiCaprio -- and could also do to him.

"I feel a little bad for Leo," says Maguire, a Southern Californian. "A few weeks ago, we went to an art gallery in Pasadena and we were just walking in the street and looking at these paintings, and we look across the street, and this guy in a parking garage is hiding in his truck, snapping photos, and then there's something in one of these [supermarket] magazines, and it's him standing next to my girlfriend and there's a story on how they're an item. You know, none of it really matters to me; I just feel bad that he can't go do something that any normal person can do without people watching him.

"But then, there's a lot of things he gets to do. I'm a little wary of it, but I think it's manageable and you can keep yourself intact."

In "Pleasantville," Maguire plays David, a very likable teenager who tries to keep the sitcom universe intact against his sister's libidinous onslaught. For Maguire, David is similar to the nice guy he played in "The Ice Storm." (Joan Allen plays his mom in both films.)

Maguire's next film is "Ride With the Devil," the story of guerrilla raiders on the Kansas-Missouri border during the Civil War. It co-stars Skeet Ulrich and Jewel and involved a lot of wading through mud and battling insects under a stifling prairie sun.

"It kicked my butt, that film," Maguire says.