Real life stories have long been a Hollywood staple, but two new films eschew the standard biopic in favour of an unconventional approach. Steve Pratt reports.

British comedy actor Peter Sellers was to be found wandering the corridors of a London hotel in search of American composer Cole Porter one day this week. As both died some years ago - Porter in 1964, Sellers 16 years later - this may seem odd. And, if truth be told, the figures weren't so much the real thing as the reel thing.

Australian actor Geoffrey Rush, who plays Sellers in a new biopic, had temporarily deserted the interview room at the Dorchester to say hello to American actor Kevin Kline, who takes the role of Porter in another new movie.

By chance, the two Oscar-winning actors were in different rooms on the same floor on the same day promoting their new movies, The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers and De-Lovely.

What this shows is that the screen's obsession with real life stories continues unabated. The difference is that such biopics are no longer the straightforward, sanitised versions of a famous life that was the norm in previous years. Both take an offbeat approach to their subjects.

The Sellers movie is the more extreme, with Rush impersonating Sellers and characters he played, including Inspector Clouseau and Dr Strangelove, as well as other keys figures in his life, such as his mother. De-Lovely stages Porter's life in flashback as a musical with contemporary singers, including Robbie Williams and Mick Hucknall, performing his songs.

As a tall, thin Australian who bears not the slightest physical resemblance to the shorter, chubbier, hairier Sellers, Rush turned down the offer when first approached to play someone he's described as "Britain's greatest comic actor". He didn't want to risk the wrath of Sellers' fans or his own reputation.

"I'm notorious, certainly with my agent, for declining things because I am frightened, or never quite sure which part of the repertoire one needs to tap into next," he admits.

He thought the screenplay for the film was brilliant and original, but fear of such a complex role led him to say, "No". He was persuaded to change his mind, agreeing after director Stephen Hopkins approached him again a year later. "He picked a time when I was making Pirates Of The Caribbean and I thought, 'Yes, I'm ready for something more serious again'. But the moment I started preparing for the role, I felt that I should have stuck to my original refusal," says Rush.

His apprehension can't have stemmed from playing a real life person as he's done that several times before, most notably winning a best actor Oscar as eccentric pianist David Helfgott in Shine.

Ultimately, the Sellers part was too good to refuse. "I've played a lot of real people. You have to decide, 'Do we go for a sterile lookalike or try to set up a contract with the audience, saying I am Geoffrey Rush as Peter Sellers', and use a few illusory tricks," he says.

"I got over the idea of playing him early on, thinking of him as less of a film icon and more of a character. It's a big story, covering all his adult life from The Goons to his final picture, Being There."

A key part of his research was an extended TV interview Sellers did with Michael Parkinson in 1974, where he came out dressed as a Nazi soldier. He feels that Sellers the performer needed the safety net of a character when acting and was rarely himself.

Although he wanted his performance to capture Sellers' spirit rather than be a slavish physical impersonation, Rush spent long hours in the make-up chair to give him a Sellers look. At one point, the actor recalls, the only bit of his own face visible through the prosthetics and make-up was his forehead. He also studied for months with a dialect coach to capture his many voices.

He spoke to people who'd known and worked with Sellers, including his There's A Girl In My Soup co-star Goldie Hawn. "She said that, on form, he was the funniest man in the world. But she also remembered having him over for one of her Hollywood parties and he walked around looking sad and silent, staring at the paintings on the wall She described him as a grown man balancing on a pin," says Rush.

Sellers himself was quoted as saying that: "To see me as a person on screen would be one of the dullest experiences you could ever wish to experience". That said a lot about his opinion of himself. He appeared not to exist outside his characters.

Rush first became aware of Sellers in the mid-70s when he saw The Return Of The Pink Panther while studying at a French theatre, mime and movement school. He remains a Sellers fan, considering him a comic genius.

Kevin Kline had less to work with to play Cole Porter in De-Lovely. The only film footage of the composer adds up to "maybe a total of one minute", including a brief TV appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. "He avoided the press, didn't do many interviews, and didn't like being photographed. He didn't advertise in the press what his private life was," says the actor.

That's because he was a gay man, who remained married to the same woman for over 30 years while indulging in flings with young men away from home. Unlike a previous biopic Night And Day, in which Cary Grant was Porter, the new film deals with his homosexuality, although in an unsensational way.

"Like what Geoffrey Rush is doing with Peter Sellers, what I've been offered is the chance to play a life story that's not an impersonation," says Kline, who played real people in Cry Freedom (journalist Donald Woods) and Chaplin (actor Douglas Fairbanks).

Also like Rush, he's an actor who moves between film and theatre, never pausing long enough to be typecast. He had a special connection with Porter, having studied classical music at university. He also insisted on singing live in the film, because he hadn't enjoyed having to lip-synch to pre-recorded tracks on The Pirates Of Penzance.

His introduction to Porter came through seeing a friend in a performance of his stage show Anything Goes. As a musical performer himself, Kline was familiar with the composer's songs with having given much thought to the man himself. He felt both intrigued and terrified at playing a man considered one of the greats in his field.

"Having been an aspiring pianist and composer when I was in school, I thought it would be a nice way to get back in that world," says Kline. "I wanted to be a composer at one time and, having failed at that, thought I could play one in the movies. I loved Porter's music and the idea of immersing myself in his music and playing the piano."

Again like Rush, the part demanded long hours in the make-up chair to transform the actor into the elderly Porter, who sees his life turned into a musical - with songs by himself - in his dying days.

His research included reading biographies of Porter, although the many discrepancies in accounts of his life led him to distrust biographers.

So what does he think Porter would make of De-Lovely if he were alive to see it? "I would hope he'd approve. I think he'd appreciate that we were trying to interpret his life in as entertaining yet authentic a way as possible, while also celebrating his genius," says Kline.

* De-Lovely (PG) and The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers (15) are now showing in cinemas.