THE ALPHA DOG

Emile Hirsch shoots to stardom as the ultimate menace to surburbia.

Who is Johnny Truelove? "The archetypal faux tough guy," explains Emile Hirsch, the 21-year-old actor whom you might know from The Girl Next Door and Lords Of Dogtown. As Truelove in Nick Cassavetes's reality-based Alpha Dog, Hirsch leads a Southern California gang of cocky suburban thugs into the ultimate "when keeping it real goes wrong" scenario. Hirsch relied on his Venice-honed skating experience to roll into 2005's Dogtown, so does he harbor a past as a weed-dealing wanksta like Truelove? Not quite. "I grew up in Los Angeles, and I went to public school," Hirsch says, "so I've met a couple Johnny Trueloves before."

To prepare for the role Hirsch endured three months of preshoot boot camp with his Alpha Dog costars, including some dude named Justin Timberlake. "It was weird at first because Justin's so famous that it kind of fucks with your head a little bit," says Hirsch. "It takes like a day or two to get used to, and then it's fine." 

Like Truelove, who is based on real-life fugitive Jesse James Hollywood, Hirsch knows how it feels to be young and wanted; the actor's career began when he was 11. After appearing on shows like ER and NYPD Blue, Hirsch got his break in 2002, when Jodie Foster tapped him for The Dangerous Lives Of Altar Boys. At the time, Hirsch was a junior at Alexander Hamilton High School in L.A. "I went from being not really known in school to being really known," he says. "It was a surreal experience."

Hirsch's fame is due for another jolt with his latest projects-the ensemble movie The Air I Breathe, the frat-hazing drama Goat, and Into The Wild, Sean Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's bestseller. In the latter, due in 2007, Hirsch plays Christopher McCandless, the upper-middle-class twentysomething who forsakes a comfortable life for ascetic hardships in the Alaskan wilderness. "I can't wait," says Hirsch. Now that's keeping it (sur)real.

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