Calgary Sun, 10 February 2002

Thanks for the memories
By Louis B. Hobson

Painful as some recollections may be, Guy Pearce doesn't suffer memory lapses.

In last year's award-winning independent film Memento, Pearce plays a man who cannot hold on to any memories for longer than a few minutes.

"I suppose a very mild form of that condition could be comforting," says Pearce, who was eight when his father died in a plane crash in their native Australia.

Pearce's older sister is mentally challenged, which put extra strain on his mom.

"My mom didn't want me moping around, so she told me to hold my head up and smile and put on a good front in public. That's why when people ask me how long I've been acting, I like to say since I was a child."

Pearce actually became a star when, as a teenager, he was cast alongside Kylie Minogue on the popular Australian soap opera "Neighbours".

"It can do something for one's ego, good and bad, to have teenage girls chasing after you trying to rip your clothes off and offer you sexual favours."

Pearce is currently starring as the villainous Fernand Mondego in Disney's new version of The Count of Monte Cristo, and will be zooming through time and space later this spring in The Time Machine.