HOWZAT

Last October, he finally bought his own house in Venice, near where we’re having lunch outdoors at a funky cafe. With large sunglasses and long, thin sideburns he looks like any Venice hipster, but as soon as he takes off the shades, his huge, sail-away blue eyes could be spotted from the shuttle Discovery. He carries himself with much more confidence and ease these days. Dressed in a generic white T-shirt and blue jeans, his almost black hair mussed up into a faint peak, he looks taller and more comfortable in his skin. He doesn’t light up a cigarette until we have finished eating and, thankfully, seems to have lost his gum-chewing habit.

At 24, Wood is also enough of his own person to acknowledge that movies are not the be-all and end-all for him. His biggest interest — an obsession, really — is music. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of popular music, from delta blues to 1950s jazz, from Django Reinhardt to the Strokes, and he can talk as easily about the blues legend Skip James as he can about his latest enthusiasm, the Glasgow band Sons and Daughters. He owns in the region of 4,000 CDs. And he has just started buying 78s.

“I got a couple of Leadbelly 78s and a couple of Billie Holiday 78s,” he says, his voice bubbling with excitement. “It’s so rad. But I have to be careful, some of them are so rare and so expensive.”

Every other Tuesday night, Wood and a friend deejay from their iPods at a club in Hollywood called the Bar.

“I never go with a set in mind,” he says. “It’s completely improvisational and fun. There’s nothing like playing music for people.” Wood may even take a break from Hollywood to pursue his interest in music. He hopes to get a radio show on the satellite radio network Sirius. Most importantly, he is going to start his own record label, to be called Simian Records. “Being such a huge fan, I’ve never really wanted to be in a band, and I’m not really good enough to be in a band — I play guitar, but barely — and I don’t really write music, so I’d rather release music that I believe in, and try to get things out there that I think are interesting and worth hearing, for no financial gain, purely because I love it and am passionate about it.”

Wood is so genuinely enthusiastic about the possibilities that his passion for music can bring him that, on reflection, I don’t think he would be terribly perturbed if Hollywood played a less important part in his life than it has up to now. “I don’t think I could ever be completely satisfied by acting,” he admits. “I have a lot of other interests, things I believe in and am passionate about. And there’s no reason not to go for it. Life is full of so many different things and so many different avenues, and I believe all of them should be explored.”

Green Street opens on September 9; Everything Is Illuminated on December 9

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