JOHN CUSACK / ACTOR-WRITER

John Cusack, though just 30, has been acting in movies for 12 years and has spent much of that time living in the Los Angeles area. But it doesn’t take long talking to him, on the eve of the release of “Grosse Pointe Blank”--which he co-wrote, co-produced and co-stars in with Minnie Driver, as a hit man at his high school reunion--to realize that his heart remains in his native Chicago.

LOCATION: “I lived in Hollywood before, but now I have a beach house in Malibu, a little shack. I don’t get into Hollywood. Hollywood’s too Hollywood. I try to stay west of the 405 as much as possible.”

WORK SPACE: “I’ve got an office in Venice. Now that is a glamorous place. Just a nice work place--it’s got a gym in it and half-court basketball.”

DA BULLS: “I try to scam courtside seats whenever the Bulls come to town to play the Lakers or Clippers. It’s very tough. You tell your agent [at William Morris] that you’ll move to CAA if they don’t get them for you, but after a while they know you’re bluffing. ‘I guess I’m not an important enough client here. . . .’ But they still don’t give you seats and give them to Bruce Willis instead.”

DA BEARS: “There was a good bar you could go to to watch the Bears games. But I forget what it was called.”

NICE GUY: “I’ve never had a confrontation with [rabid Lakers fan] Jack Nicholson. Actually, I’ve bummed cigarettes off him. He’s never said, ‘You stinking Bulls fan.’ . . . just gave me a Marlboro and asked how I was doing.”

FULL CONTACT: “I do lots of martial arts, kick boxing and stuff. When you’ve been dealing with Hollywood for 10 years, it’s nice to be able to hit something. I learned this when I did ‘Say Anything . . . ‘ and have been doing it on and off since.”

RECENT MOVIE HE WISHES HE’D BEEN IN: “ ‘When We Were Kings’ [the documentary about the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman fight in Zaire]. But of course, I was barely alive at the time. That was ‘74, and I was 8.”

SIBLING RIVALRY: “No. My sister [actress Joan] and I don’t go for the same parts. And I’m happy for my brother [Bill] when he does good things. But get me and my brother on the basketball court and it’s very competitive.”

BEST PLACE TO BE RECOGNIZED: “I don’t have that instinct, believe it or not. But when you go to a basketball game and sit courtside, it’s fun when the players come and say hello to you.”