Keeping it real, dog

PAUL Walker had barely taken his seat at a table in the deserted lounge of a Santa Monica beachfront hotel to discuss his two new films -- the family-friendly “Eight Below” and the gritty thriller, “Running Scared” -- when a woman timidly approached.

“Can my son take a picture of us together?” she asked the lanky, blue-eyed star of “The Fast and the Furious.”

Walker offered a brief smile, looked at her camera-toting son and quickly said yes.

“Don’t cut his head off,” the woman instructed her son, who looked all of 7 years old. Walker put his arms around her and smiled for the camera. “I am such a big fan,” the woman said afterward. “I have seen all your movies.”

It’s the kind of encounter that Walker, 32, can look forward to having more and more these days, especially with back-to-back films on the horizon.

“Eight Below,” which opens Friday, casts Walker as Jerry, the resident guide at a scientific research base in Antarctica who is forced to leave his beloved sled dog team behind when a massive storm strikes the area.

Director Frank Marshall initially didn’t think Walker was the right pick to play the canine-loving Jerry, who spends most of the movie trying to get back to Antarctica to find his dogs.

“His management suggested him and I thought, ‘Well, he’s a great-looking guy, but he’s a tough guy in ‘Fast and the Furious’ and certainly ‘Running Scared.’ They said, ‘we got to show you this movie, “Into the Blue,” where there is a whole other side to him.’ I saw it and went, ‘Wow, there is a guy who is an outdoorsman, easygoing and charming.’ That is the kind of guy I pictured.”

That’s pretty high praise, considering “Blue” was panned by critics and bombed at the box office. But what really sealed the deal for Marshall was that Walker loves dogs. In fact, Walker’s Chesapeake Bay retriever Boone played his dog in “Blue.”

“When I first met him, I said, ‘Do you have a dog?’ ” recalls Marshall. “And he said, ‘Yep.’ I said, ‘That’s it’ ... He’s a real likable guy. And you could believe he was this outdoorsy guy who was down there sort of relying on the unconditional love and loyalty of these dogs. He was a natural with the dogs. Even though they respond to their trainers, he got to know their dogs. It helped me in not having to cut around scenes where the dogs would look for their trainer because they became focused on him.”

“The dog I had the closest bond to was Shorty, which was the white one,” said Walker, who was raised in Sunland and now lives in Santa Barbara. “He was the utility dog, primarily used for working the sled.”

But Shorty took to training so quickly, Walker said, that his on-screen duties expanded.

He decided to do “Eight Below” partly because he wanted to do a family film. Walker has a 7-year-old daughter, Meadow, who lives in Hawaii. He said he visits her there as often as he can.

Meadow had flown into town for the premiere of “Eight Below.” She and seven of her cousins all stayed at Walker’s mother’s house in La Canada Flintridge the night before, anxiously awaiting the big event. “They had a hard time sleeping,” Walker said with a laugh.

One week after “Eight Below” comes “Running Scared,” opening Feb. 24.

In it, he plays the tough-as-nails Joey Gazelle, a character that is 180 degrees removed from “Eight Below’s” Jerry. It is an R-rated, violent thriller about a low-level mobster in New Jersey who is supposed to dispose of some hot guns used in a mob killing. But his plans go awry when an abused boy who lives next door (Cameron Bright) steals one of the guns to shoot his hot-tempered Russian stepfather.

Writer-director Wayne Kramer (“The Cooler”) said he, too, was ambivalent about Walker before “Running Scared.”

“His agents got a hold of the script and were really dogging me about it,” he said. “I had probably seen ‘The Fast and the Furious’ and didn’t hate it or dislike him. But I knew there was a perception about him. He was more of a surfer boy, that he felt kind of soft. [But] when I met him, I thought there was something unique about him. There was something more intense about him than what I was expecting.

“I thought, ethnically and physically, we can shape him up and cut his hair and give him some stubble, but if the actor didn’t have the grit and personal intensity to play the role, it would never work. He likes to surf, but he’s pretty tough. He’s like the guy on the screen without the criminal background.”

Walker broke into a wide grin when told about Kramer’s comments. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said about the “tough guy” label. “But I’m not a pushover.”

The actor pursued “Running Scared” in part because he wanted to play a more mature character and because Kramer’s script had the appeal of one of Guy Ritchie’s fast-paced crime melodramas. “This is a movie I’d really like to see,” Walker recalled thinking at the time, adding “I love Guy Ritchie movies. I love ‘Snatch.’ ”

Though Joey hangs with the wrong crowd, Walker believes he’s a moral guy. “He’s loyal to his family. He’s never cheated on his wife. He is a protector.”

LATER this year, Walker will be seen in John Herzfeld’s new movie, “The Death and Life of Bobby Z” and in Clint Eastwood’s World War II Iwo Jima drama, “Flags of Our Fathers.”

Walker again fought for a part Sgt. Hank Hansen in the Eastwood film -- though it’s not a major role. “It was a relentless pursuit,” he admits. “I told my agent I wanted to be part of the project.”

Both his grandfathers served in World War II. “One grandfather was a Pearl Harbor survivor,” and his father is a Vietnam vet. “They are so excited about the film,” Walker said. As for Eastwood, he said, “he’s a real unassuming guy, a really good guy.”

When he’s not working, Walker surfs, skateboards and races cars. He also travels with the same friends he’s had since grade school, who keep him “real.”

Soon, the time allotted for the interview was over. Walker stood up, put his hands in his blue jean pockets, and announced: “I’m going to order up some oatmeal.” Then he sauntered through the lobby, back to his room.