TORONTO -- Dennis Quaid has been "on" since 8:30 in the morning, when he climbed somewhat groggily onto a stage with co-stars Julianne Moore and Dennis Haysbert to chat with the press about the film Far from Heaven.

It's now late afternoon on the first Saturday of the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, and the actor's in dire need of a break. And a good long haul on a smoke.

It's been a day of back-to-back interviews in a bland hotel room, and the 48-year-old actor is close to talked out. But Quaid's still genial, his sardonic wit in place. As one journalist leaves the room, and the next is ushered in, he takes a drag on his cigarette, stubs it out, turns, and flashes that famous lopsided grin.

After 30 years in the movie business, Quaid knows how this game is played. He plays the star. Plugs the film. Tells a few bits about himself. Half an hour more and he'll be able to drop the celebrity persona and go back to being, well, just himself.

Right now, there's serious buzz in Hollywood that Quaid is in the running for Oscar nominations for two films. First, for his role as Frank Whitaker, a gay married man who comes out of the closet in Todd Haynes's masterful 1950s mock-weepie, Far from Heaven. Rumour has it Quaid might also get the nod for his starring role in Disney's feel-good baseball flick, The Rookie.

Quaid has heard the Oscar murmurs, too. "That would be nice," the Texan-born actor says in his husky, low drawl. "That would be real nice."

He says he's proud of both films: Far from Heaven because it stretched him to acting levels he's never reached before, and The Rookie because it's his son, Jack's, favourite. "It's a beautiful story about second chances in life," Quaid says. "And I kind of feel that's what I have . . . a second chance."

Fifteen years ago, when he was riding the crest of superstardom from breakout films such as The Big Easy, Quaid -- then the tireless party animal -- would probably have balked at doing this kind of grinding press drill.

These days, he says he's glad, frankly, to talk about his work, to be in demand. He remembers too well the years -- in the early to mid-1990s -- when meaty roles were scarce.

Now top-line producers and directors are calling. And Quaid finally seems mature enough to handle some adulation. He's learned, the hard way, not to take success for granted.

Fit and tanned, Quaid looks younger than his 48 years. He's still got the rugged good looks that made female fans swoon when he and Ellen Barkin sizzled and sweated through the New Orleans heat in The Big Easy. His look is part boyish and vulnerable, and part "man, I can't wait to stir things up" precocious. A juxtaposition that can be a lethal, and irresistible, combination.

Quaid has skeletons, and he's never pretended otherwise. But he insists his wild party days are behind him. Now his primary focus is being a good dad to 10-year-old Jack (with his former wife, Meg Ryan) and working hard.

Take his tormented, gay Frank in Far from Heaven, a role he plays with a repressed anguish that had most critics raving. "I haven't been through exactly what Frank has been through," Quaid says. "But I have gone through difficult periods in my life. The film is really about trying to live an authentic life. Everyone in the film has a secret and, in fact, is living a secret life, which keeps them from being who they are.

"That's what Frank was going through, and certainly I have been through that in my life -- certain sections of it where I've tried to deny what was really going on. I can relate to the guy."

At the early-morning press conference at Toronto's Four Seasons Hotel, a reporter asked Quaid to elaborate on some of the personal demons he has battled and vanquished. Quaid declined the confessional. "No, I can't do that," he told the crowded room, his Cheshire cat grin still there, but with a hint of steel under it. "It's between me and my therapist and my God."

How easy was it for this macho guy, who literally walks with a swagger, to portray a gay man? A cinch, Quaid says, adding that he approached the character like any other. Just a person "who happens to fall in love. When that happens, you just can't fight it. It grows to a point where you just cannot hold it inside any more. You can't contain it. To me you can't help being attracted to who you're attracted to."

In the past, Quaid's demons have included alcohol and cocaine. His penchant for parties was legendary. These days, he says, grinning wickedly, he's quite demure. "I do rock 'n' roll," says the actor, referring to his band, the Sharks. "And when I get up on stage I act like I'm out of my mind. But I'm in bed six nights out of seven by 11 o'clock. I get up early to take my son to school." (Ryan and Quaid split, after 10 years, in 2001.)

Quaid grew up in the Houston suburb of Meyerland. His mom, Nita, was a real-estate agent; his dad, Buddy, an electrical contractor. His older brother is actor Randy Quaid. Their parents split (apparently because of Buddy's battle with the bottle) when Quaid was 12.

He quit the University of Houston in his junior year to become an actor. His first break was Breaking Away (1979), followed by The Right Stuff (1983) about Mercury 7, part of the first U.S. manned space program. A few years later, he wowed critics and audiences as the oily homicide detective in The Big Easy. Then he was the toast of Hollywood, but the success went to his head. His partying got out of control. Ryan helped him through rehab. And Quaid took a two-year break from the business.

His comeback was slow, with roles in smaller, quirkier movies such as Wilder Napalm and Flesh and Bone. Then he appeared in Wyatt Earp, Something to Talk About, The Parent Trap, Dragonheart and Any Given Sunday. Far from Heaven was a project he felt compelled to do. To him, the film's premise is simple: It's about the challenge of living an authentic life.

Does he now have an authentic life? "Yah, I do. I've reconciled with the business that I'm in, living with fame, getting used to what the tabloids have to say and all the rest of it. But I still have my private life. I've learned how to have that life, and have my life as well."

At the start of the press conference, the festival's moderator introduced Quaid as two Dennis Quaids -- "the one who is the consummate macho with the six-pack. The other, weak and vulnerable, as he had been on the stage in True West opposite his brother Randy. The actor today combines both, and then some."

One could say the man does, too.