LOS ANGELES - It had to happen. Tom Cruise has fallen out of Hollywood's good graces and joined the ranks of the industry's unsavory characters.

He's gone gray and grizzled. That blinding, boyish grin, his trademark the last two decades, now is reserved for moments of morbidly twisted humor.

Cruise has transformed from hitmaker to hitman in "Collateral. It's his first turn as an all-around bad guy, a contract killer who hijacks a taxi and forces the driver (Jamie Foxx) to ferry him from hit to hit on a one-night spree across Los Angeles.

It's a major sea change when an era's biggest leading man turns to the dark side after playing the action hero, the dashing romancer and the crusader for justice.

"I really dug the story and dug the character. I just choose roles where I go, 'OK, this is interesting, I've never played this before,'" Cruise said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"I look for characters that I feel are going to be challenging. This is definitely right out there. A very, very complex character, playing this anti-social personality."

Though he has earned three Academy Award nominations, Cruise has yet to rise to the level of peers such as Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington and Sean Penn as serious actors. "Collateral" is a reminder that Cruise has more depth and willingness to go to dark places than his heroic turns would imply. But, as Cruise points out, it's not like everyone he's played before is a candidate for sainthood.

"If you look at it, I really play a lot of different kinds of characters," Cruise said, and he chooses them for their creative appeal, not to fit the mold of his public image.

"I don't look at things in the third person. I'm me. I don't know how to go, 'What are people going to think?' I don't live my life like that. I live in terms of, I like this material. Can I make it work?"