Ben Kingsley takes skewed aim as a childlike alcoholic assassin who falls in love in You Kill Me.

You might expect a fellow with Sir in front of his name to have his people call your people when it comes time to do some publicity for a new movie. But when the phone rings at the appointed time, the esteemed British actor is on the other end of the line, in London.

"Hi, Ken? This is Ben Kingsley," he says, sensibly enough. And when I ask him about protocol, he simply laughs and says, "I don't have any people."

Okay, maybe he let his people go. Certainly, he has done some Moses-style liberating on a few occasions. In fact, he played the Hebrew patriarch in Moses, a TV movie from 1995, and he narrated a new animated version of The Ten Commandments, recently completed. (Elliot Gould provides the voice of God, in case you need to know.)

Born to an Indian mother and British father, the 63-year-old became a household name after his Oscar win for 1982's Gandhi. In the quarter-century since, he has played many less saintly roles. In this decade alone, he went decidedly un-nice as Don Logan in Sexy Beast, was another mobster in Lucky Number Slevin, and assayed a cranky Fagin in Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist.

In You Kill Me, which opens here on Friday (July 6), Kingsley plays a much lesser bad guy: Frank Falenczyk, a Buffalo hit man sent to AA on the West Coast to straighten out his increasingly wobbly kill skills. Directed by Red Rock West's John Dahl and costarring Téa Leoni as a feisty love interest and Luke Wilson as an unlikely San Francisco friend, the movie is more an exercise in acting chemistry and tonal control than a crime story.

"Indeed it was. That's absolutely true," he confirms, while describing his role as both star and executive producer–the first time this has happened. "Thanks to my good fortune, and a wonderful script, I was able to bring John onboard and Téa onboard, and I was very happy with that combination."

Producer Carol Baum had already championed the script (by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who also wrote The Chronicles of Narnia) for roughly eight years before she talked Kingsley into lending his skills on both sides of the camera. The veteran actor liked the opportunity to hand-pick his own cast, and he savoured the chance to work up a working-class, Polish-American accent suitable to an alcoholic assassin in upstate New York (even if the movie was mostly shot in Winnipeg).

Some of Kingsley's intensity with villains can be ascribed to the inside-out Method approach associated with Marlon Brando and the Actor's Studio. But mostly he subscribes to the Laurence Olivier school of just acting the part.

"I came in for the last two months," he says with a laugh. "So I skipped the whole heartbreak part of it and got the best bits. I loved doing the accent, but that's really just the voice that came out of Frank when I arrived on the set. I toyed with it a little beforehand, and there was some improvisation with the other actors. But I knew that was the voice that he would have; it's also the result of all that alcohol, so I knew that layer would be there.

"It wasn't overly conscious; it just evolved out of studying the script. I simply learn my lines. Nobody quite believes this, but I do. I learn my lines backwards and forwards. I completely know the rhythm of the writing by the time I reach the set. When actors do that, we can really fly; we can really explore the relationships."

Kingsley says he offered to work with a dialect coach but that Dahl said "absolutely not" as he was afraid of overworking the part.

"The voice and everything else evolved directly from the character of Frank, who is basically a child. The world happens to Frank in this film, and that's what I found so appealing. I so often play a man who imprints the world. I think he maintains that childlike quality throughout the story; he just comes out a much happier child by the end."

Part of the movie's absurd appeal is that people accept this offbeat protagonist's skewed view of the world.

"The thing about Frank is that he leads a very violent life and he is an addict, but at the same time he is very innocent. That's a very interesting combination, I think, and I tried to keep it as simple as possible in order to focus on that combination to keep his childlike quality at the forefront."

More contrast is provided by Leoni, who offers snappy wiscracks to counter Kingsley's measured, self-conscious drawl. (She was also given a producing credit.)

"Téa was a wonderful addition. She's so generous and witty and strong in every way. She brought an enormously rich tone to the project. Of course, Luke Wilson and Bill Pullman brought a lot, too. We did it as a journey through these wonderfully diverse characters. Frank meets these people and this is how he is able to put down the gun and put down the bottle."

To do this, the central character must leave what is essentially an all-male nest to venture into unfamiliar territory.

"Yes, Frank has the kind of morose respect for his uncle and cousins that a kid has for his parents. Then he gets himself in a very tight corner, which he is forced to leave. He tells Luke's character that he has never been on a date sober in his life, so when he meets the woman played by Téa, it's probably the first real female challenge he's ever had to face–and most likely the first loving relationship he has encountered since his actual childhood."

This conjecture is tricky business, because the script, heavy on well-timed zingers, is not exactly forthcoming with history to explain everyone's motivations.

"I think most of the roles are left unexplained," Kingsley muses, "including Frank's. We know he's a failed hit man, but we didn't want too much back story. We really love presenting the story to the audience for them to discover rather than laying it out on a plate for them, as usually happens. You know: 'No brain needed!' It's golly awful when films tell you what the characters are about to do, then they shoot them doing it, then they talk about what they've just done."

And then the orchestra rushes in to sweep away any doubt. Indeed, it's the stated goal of You Kill Me to defy expectations.

"So far, I'm very encouraged by the response to this film. It has a lightness of touch that I think will help it succeed. John's way of filming the story was absolutely superb–that delicacy there, and also the way every laugh in the auditorium is rooted in reality."

Kingsley has at least five more projects in the pipeline. He will also be seen as a Russian agent alongside American train travellers played by Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer in the Hitchcockian Transsiberian. He's a Middle Eastern minister in War, Inc. (with John Cusack once again as the central hit man). And he stars opposite Penélope Cruz in Elegy, Isabel Croixet's adaptation of the Philip Roth novel of the same name, much of which is being shot in B.C.

There have been few lulls since Kingsley had his Oscar win, but his new turn as a film producer, through his Bipolar Pictures, should offer him a chance to have more control of his roles and their content.

"It's encouraging, because we really do want to make life-enhancing films. This is our first true coproduction, with more to come, I am certain. First there are these others. Of course, for The Ten Commandments, all I did was sit in a room and read the words."

What, they didn't even show him the movie?

"No. But fortunately, I already know the story."