Ryan Phillippe plays Louis Roulet, a privileged Beverly Hills playboy with a passion for murder in The Lincoln Lawyer, a picture based on the novel by Michael Connelly (Blood Work).  Matthew McConaughey is Mick Haller, the defense lawyer who takes on Roulet’s case.

“If you see the commercials or the trailer, you know I’m not a good dude in this movie and once that is revealed there are so many twists and turns beyond it that I don’t think it deflates the impact,” says Phillippe, who has designs on optioning the screen rights to another Connelly book, The Poet. “There is something interesting about the psychology of a serial killer who kind of wants to be caught.  Who leaves clues, who kind of leads on the police.  When Roulet is so anxious to take the stand in his defense, he is so adamant that the case go immediately to trial. A guilty person would want to avoid those things but there is something I think he gets off on about that. There is something that excites him about the game, about toying with people.”

Although he has toplined his share of first rate dramas (Flags of Our Fathers, Stop-Loss, Breach), Phillippe actually had to audition for The Lincoln Lawyer. Click on the media bar and listen to Phillippe explain why he decided to audition for the part (the actor mentions director Brad Furman in the clip).

  The Lincoln Lawyer, co-starring Marisa Tomei and William H. Macy, opens Friday.

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