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"\n\nWe're partway through our conversation when the topic turns to self-love and Terrence Howard says, \"I think narcissism is a very good thing.\" He laughs and then sighs. Then he says, \"You should never see someone else as more beautiful than you. That's my idea of beauty in this warped world, and I wish everyone felt that way.\"\n\nThen he puts his phone aside while he orders a Filet-O-Fish meal and a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese at a drive-through in Philly. He was supposed to do this interview in person, but Howard had to beat it back from New York City because his daughter had the flu. It's unfortunate we're not talking face-to-face, since he's known to take out his guitar and sing original country songs during interviews.\n\nHis voice in conversation is peculiar and twangy. He sounds almost feminine. But he's the kind of feminine man you wouldn't really trust around your girlfriend. This pansexual twangy weirdness adds to the sense that he is deep. He's the kind of profound that might go well with an ascot and a snifter of Cognac. It's what makes his characters so weird, off-kilter, and transporting, from that emasculated TV director wearing his emasculating turtleneck sweater in Crash to the lead role in Hustle &amp;amp; Flow, maybe the best performance of that year, despite his losing the best-actor Oscar to Philip Seymour Hoffman.\n\n\"I'd like another chance walking down that big red carpet,\" he says. He means being nominated for best actor. \"And hopefully walk home with it this time.\"\n\nBut what about the trope that it's all about the work, not the approval?\n\n\"Oh please,\" he says. \"That's like &#145;I don't want the championship; I just like to play.' People who start out as actors are actors because they're glory hounds. They're not satisfied with who they are. And you cannot turn that off. No matter how humble you act, you cannot turn that off\u2014that you love it when that camera goes flash, flash, flash.\"\n\nSince Hustle, which gathered the sort of critical mass around Howard that doesn't happen to actors often, his life has changed fairly radically. His name is currently attached to nine films, including the tearjerky inspirational Pride, out in March, in which he plays a hard-ass inner-city swim coach. He's good enough to almost convince you that swim meets are interesting.\n\n\"I don't miss the days of struggle,\" he says. \"I've had enough of that. That's like saying, &#145;Do you miss the time in which you used to soil your diapers?' What I'd truly miss is this time in my life.\"\n\nBut would that Oscar be enough flash, flash, flash? What about being the dude with the biggest paycheck?\n\n\"I want that, too. But the biggest box-office man in the world right now is Will Smith. And after spending time with him, I see that he has a quality that most people will never have. I don't smile that much. Most of the time, I'm in predatory mode. It's just a difference in plants. Every plant is necessary in the garden.\" You know Howard's getting deep when he's using metaphors. And when he finds a metaphor, he likes to get on it and keep riding until he's unbounded from whatever it is he's really talking about and he's cruising through the land of pure abstract profundity. \"Will's that welcoming plant that everyone talks about. I'm that plant that sits off in the back of the garden that could be highly poisonous or very beautiful. But I love it. I love my place in the garden.\"\n\nPresumably, then, being the subject of a fashion shoot such as this one would be a good way to appreciate oneself.\n\n\"If there was a mirror behind the camera so I could look at myself,\" he says, \"then I'd be happy.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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