By Jenny Halper in New York City

Clive Owen spends most of “Inside Man” with his face concealed, but his presence still looms large. Fresh off an Oscar nomination for his turn as a morally ambiguous lover in “Closer,” the British actor takes on a very different type of creep- a much more clever one.

When Owen's robber holds fifty people hostage in a New York bank, a cop (Denzel Washington) and power broker (Jodie Foster) work to bring them to safety.

Q: Was it challenging wearing a mask in 90% of the film?

CLIVE: It was very strange, actually, and it was a concern right at the beginning when Spike first talked to me about it. Because as you say, an awful lot of the movie, once you're inside the bank, I have to keep my face covered. It's unusual, because your intent as an actor is expressed through your face, through your eyes and through your face, and that's where you see an actor's intent. I remember when we did the scene where Denzel comes into the bank, he was a bit sort of freaked by it as well. It's a bit like “I can't see this guy's eyes. I don't know what's going on there.”

Q: It couldn't have been very comfortable.

CLIVE: It wasn't particularly uncomfortable, no. You treat it like you treat any character. That was the costume, that's the character and the situation he was in. We managed to… we could do the phone calls without the mask on. It was unusual, but it wasn't… it was part of my job really.

Q: You have a couple of great scenes with Jodie and Denzel.

CLIVE: Those scenes were fantastic. I've been a huge fan of Spike Lee's for his whole career really, and to be in a movie directed by him with Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster…they're both absolutely as good as it gets. You know, the whole roll for me in the last year or two has been incredible, and the biggest thing is working with people of that caliber.

Q: What do you like about noir?

CLIVE: I didn't even ever think about it in terms of being a noir. I just saw a very sharp script with Spike directing and the rest of the people involved, so if that's noir, then I'd love to keep doing noir.

Q: Denzel has a luxury of having worked with Spike and knowing his directing style. What was it like for you to work with Spike?

CLIVE: I not only really like and respect him as a director, but I like him as a guy as well. And he's incredibly dynamic with the camera, he's very assured about how he wants to shoot a scene, and he's always very sort of visceral and strong, and he does that unusual thing that we talked about, where for the last six movies, he shot in both directions at the same time, which is… I've never done it before in any movie. It's often just too difficult for the guys who light the scene if you got to shoot in both directions, but I think Spike has discovered that it keeps a spontaneity and an aliveness in the scene, and also, if anything unpredictable happens, you can go with it. All those phone calls I had with Denzel in the movie, we shot live on the phone with two crews, one that was shooting me and one shooting him on two different sets, and that was very very… it was a very exciting and a very live way of working. No, I've got just the absolute respect. I'm a huge fan of Spike's, so I think he's a very special filmmaker.

Q: How did he make “Inside Man” different from other heist movies?

CLIVE: We know the heist movie scenario, and then it starts to change. I think he's not the usual guy who takes over a bank in that way. He's doing it for his own very particular reasons and as the thing unravels and develops, you realize that it's a very unusual heist, and he has planned a very clever smart situation here, and that was an attraction to doing it. It was a very smart script. It was a very well put together heist movie, I think.  

Q: What made your character tick?

CLIVE: What drove me was the idea of playing this guy who pulls off this very extraordinary bank robbery, and has his own reasons for doing so, and it looks like it's one thing. He takes hostages, and it looks like it's going to be very violent… there's a guy in there to rob the bank and make a lot of money for himself and that isn't quite the case. The guy is motivated by other things. It's not a straightforward, clear-cut thing, but I think that goes for every character in the movie. I think every character is very rich and ambiguous.

Q: Why and how was the “Bond” appearance in “Pink Panther” kept a secret?

CLIVE: They just sent me that script and I laughed when I read that scene, so I said yes, I'd do it. I just thought it was a funny scene. That's why I did it. There's no other motive behind it.

Q: You've said that you're drawn to dangerous characters. When you play a guy like this, do you have to find some aspect of him that you relate to?

CLIVE: I can always relate, because I never… it's weird because sometimes people get the idea that I play a lot of bad guys in my movies, but I've never see any of them as bad. (Maybe it's just me, but it's always much more interesting to play someone that has some sort of conflict going on or that is ambiguous. To play one good guy- none of us are, so it doesn't feel real to me. So I'm always much more interested in playing characters that are full of contradictions, really.

Q: Is there a role that you're just dying to play that you haven't yet?

CLIVE: Ultimately, films are a director's medium. You have to be in tune with the director. It's hugely important who is directing the movie and then obviously, there's the script and the part, and it's an instinctive thing with me. A script comes through… I mean, this one, I don't need any persuading. It's Spike Lee directing with Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster in it as well. That was a very clear done deal very quickly. 

Q: After growing up in England , what were your first impressions of New York ?

CLIVE: Well, New York is the best city in the world. It's the capital of the world in my opinion. It's the only place I ever come where I can always stay longer. That was the first…I shot one or two of the BMWs in New York, but this was the first time I had come to New York to shoot a movie and to be shooting on Wall Street with Spike was like…. was a really fantastic experience. I'm crazy about this city. I think if it wasn't for the fact that I have a family and kids that are very settled in London , I'm pretty sure that I'd be living here.

Q: Is “Sin City 2” going to happen? Bruce Willis says he's doing a sequel but that you're doing a prequel.

CLIVE: I have no idea. They've been talking about it, but nothing's been sorted out yet. I think Rob is definitely intending to do two more movies, but there's nothing been set in concrete as regards to who's in it and when it is. 

Q: Will your children be allowed to see this movie?

CLIVE: My children can't see any of my movies. (laughs). They're 9 and 6, but no, maybe they could. I haven't really thought about that one yet. They came out and they came on set and they met Spike and they know about this bank robbing film where Daddy puts on this funny mask…but maybe they will be able to see it. I can't think if there's anything I object to too much in the thing.

Q: What made you choose “Shoot ‘Em Up,” and how is it working with a first time director?

CLIVE: Literally, I came from Toronto yesterday. I was in the middle of shooting. It is a really incredibly wild original script. This script landed and I was sold… I was told that they didn't think it would be for me, and it was so inventive and so crazy and wild. It's an incredibly ingenious action movie where the lead character keeps being put in incredible situations and you can't believe he's going to get out of them, but somehow he does in very inventive ingenious [action]. It starts with the guy delivering a baby in an alleyway with people shooting at him, and it doesn't let up for the next 90 minutes. So it was really…I met the director and thought if someone can pull this off, this will be wild and extraordinary. And I met him and I thought he could pull it off, because he had been planning this movie for seven years. He's incredibly on top of it and organized and it's leaping off the page.

Q: And “Children of Men”? Has that been changed much from the book?

CLIVE: It's taken as the central theme and it's definitely the same story, but the actual elements of the book have been changed quite a lot. It's still set 30 years in the future and the conceit is still the same, that no one has had a baby anywhere for eighteen years and our reluctant hero has ended linked up with the only pregnant girl on the planet. That's still the same thing, but Alfonso's done a really fascinating, unusual exploration of where things could be going, and that's still very, very strong in the movie. It's a very unusual take. People are assuming it's a sci-fi movie, and it's almost the opposite of that. It's like now, but worse. It's the environment we're living in. It's not futuristic. It's like things have not ended up that great, and we're in a world where there are no children, which is a pretty bleak place. But he's created a very… half the movie's a chase movie, really, but it's in a really extraordinary vision of the future. 

“Inside Man” opens on March 24th .