Actor Matt Dillon has been many things to many people throughout his lengthy career—a heartthrob in early films such as “The Outsiders” and “Rebel,” a clueless fall guy in “One Night at McCool’s,” and, of course, the instigator of a devastatingly sexy threesome in “Wild Things.”

Writer-director Paul Haggis, too, has run the gamut of infamy in his long career, penning screenplays for shows as wide-rangingly awful as “The Love Boat” (yes, the original), “The Facts of Life,” and “Walker, Texas Ranger.”

But the memorable lows of this pair’s careers do not point to an overall dearth of talent.

Even in spite of Dillon’s decision to appear in the latest Lindsay Lohan debacle “Herbie,” he remains, for all intents and purposes, a good actor that can steal any scene he’s in. And Haggis, emerging from his wasteland past, garnered near-universal critical praise and an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for last year’s “Million Dollar Baby.”

With the new film “Crash,” in limited release on May 6, the two finally put their less-than-stellar pasts behind them, respectively offering some of their best work to date. Dillon’s smarmy, understated performance in “Crash,” as part of an ensemble cast also featuring Brendan Fraser, Sandra Bullock, and Don Cheadle, is a stirring reminder of the nuanced actor who impressed in such films as “Rumble Fish” and “Drugstore Cowboy.” Serving double duty as the screenwriter and director of the film, Haggis again displays an ear and eye for real human interactions that should send critics back to their thesauruses for fresh compliments.

On April 5, the two sat down to chat about pulling the film together, breaking into their new roles, and reacting to the sudden brightness of the critical spotlight.

UNDERSTANDING ‘CRASH’

The biggest draw of “Crash” will inevitably be its gargantuan, high-quality cast, featuring a cultural and racial diversity of which admissions directors could only dream.

Haggis says that he was able to cast so many high-quality actors in the low-budget indie film by “casting against type. You can get really terrific people if you ask them to stretch and do something different.”

Dillon, for his part, didn’t think twice about playing a sleazy, xenophobic cop. “If it’s a good part, I do it. I don’t worry about protecting some image,” he says.

He prepared for the role by riding along with L.A.’s finest, soliciting tips on how to play a “hard-nosed, controlling” officer “who’s bitter, and some of that bitterness comes out sideways on the job.” According to Dillon, the veteran police officer he tagged along with described brutal police officers as a relatively commonplace occurrence in the force—kicking feet out, twisting fingers together.

“When you’re in the car with them, you see their vulnerability. They feel that they have a bulls-eye on their backs,” Dillon says of the police officers with surprising sympathy.

The controversial nature of the film, which investigates racial tensions and politics in the fragmented L.A. metropolis, was never really a point of contention with Haggis either. “We didn’t tone down anything. If [co-writer] Bobby [Moresco] and I were in our right mind, we would have, but we just decided, it’s truth, it comes from a place of truth, we have to say this…We were very, very nervous. Terrified,” Haggis says.

Haggis felt from the outset that “Crash” was not a major studio picture, not only due to the less-than-feel-good subject matter but also because of the presentation of the film’s action, which eschews many traditional rules of Hollywood narrative construction. “I just threw out all my ideas about story structure,” he says. “We just sort of muddled our way through, and got done, and said, ‘Is this a script? Is this satisfying?’ We had no idea.”

With a small trace of disdain palpable in his voice for safe, stale Hollywood film product, Haggis explains, “I leave all of the characters where most Hollywood films would say, ‘Okay, that’s the end of Act 2, they’ve asked themselves the big question. Now how do they resolve that in Act 3?’ Well, I wasn’t interested in how they resolved it. I was interested in getting to that point.”

Furthermore, Haggis had no interest in making any grand, sweeping declarations with the film. He says, “I just wanted to make a good movie. It’s about the fact that each human being embodies these contradictions that we just can’t explain sometimes. That’s what makes us wonderful, that’s what makes us all unique—the capacity to change.”

Haggis, who had the critics tripping over one another in their effusive exaltations of the well-paced storytelling in “Million Dollar Baby,” is again basking in the warm glow of praise from some of film’s top tastemakers. Still, the director retains a modest view of it all.

“[New Yorker film critic] David Denby called ‘Crash’ one of the best first films in the history of film, to which I say, ‘Get the fuck out of here!’” Haggis blurts out, breaking into laughter.

Haggis should get used to such over-the-top declarations this early on in his directing career—“Crash” is a commendable film. Dillon is convincingly off-putting, and the rest of the cast makes the best of their limited screen time.

Despite Haggis’s claims to the contrary, many may say the film falls prey to an overly neat ending, never really capitalizing on the spark and vitriol which is abundant earlier on. Nevertheless, Haggis accomplishes his goal of making “Crash” stay in your consciousness long after you’ve left the parking lot. And there wasn’t even a single three-way.