For someone who has never really sought acting roles, Australian Noah Taylor has done pretty well for himself. At 16 he got the lead in John Duigan's "The Year My Voice Broke," then also starred in its sequel, "Flirting." "I was physically right for the part," the 27-year-old says modestly. The Melbourne native, who comes from a family of journalists, says acting was something he "fell into" after doing a bit of theater. He believes that "people who get work a lot of times have really drifted into it. There are others who desperately want to be actors and that's kind of a sad, horrible thing to watch. People want to make too much of it. It's just a job, really."

Taylor, natural and affecting on film, had his most recent job in "Shine," the stirring true story of Australian child prodigy David Helfgott, who exhibited such phenomenal talent as a pianist that he was slated to become a luminary in the classical music world. Then came a tragic mental breakdown, followed by years spent in psychiatric hospitals. "Shine," brilliantly directed by Scott Hicks, is a redemptive tale, showing Helfgott's triumphant return to the concert stage in his 40s after gaining strength and finding love.

But this is not to say that Helfgott is currently a stable person. He grunts and babbles about traffic while playing concerts, and in "Shine" he innocently grabs women's breasts and jumps up and down naked on a child's trampoline. "The second time I met him was at a hotel," Taylor relates. "I knocked on his door, and usually his wife is around to sort of control him. He opened the door and he was totally nude and had shampoo all over his head. He grabbed me and tongue-kissed me in the ear. He's an incredibly friendly guy. He doesn't mean anything by it."

There are three actors who play Helfgott in "Shine," with Taylor depicting him from his teens until his breakdown. Geoffrey Rush is the adult Helfgott, and to make the transition believable, Taylor and Rush worked together on simulating the pianist's obsessive mannerisms. The actors were also given piano lessons, and while Rush did most of his own playing, special effects were used in Taylor's case. It comes off as amazingly real. "I'm not allowed to say how it was done," he demurs.

Yet Taylor does have his own brand of musical talent, playing guitar and singing in a country-rock band, the 13s. "It's just my lucky number," he says of the band's name, in between bites of a sandwich in his New York publicist's office. He also sports a large silver "13" ring and has "13" tattooed on the underside of his forearm. Soft-spoken and ironic, Taylor has a thick mop of dark hair, intense brown eyes and a wisp of a mustache--a distinct, memorable look that could be right for any number of roles. But it's playing in bands, he says, that keeps him sane. "I just find playing music with people is the most pleasurable thing I've ever done." More pleasurable than acting? "Oh, yeah, infinitely. One's a job and one's my love."

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