At the age of 25, Utah native Corbin Allred has become an inspirational figure — the elder statesman, perhaps — to other aspiring LDS actors.

After all, Allred has been working in the industry, and has been living in Hollywood — or at least Southern California — for more than a decade (that is, around the two years he spent in Australia serving an LDS mission).

Allred made his professional acting debut in 1992, when he was 13, with what was essentially a walk-on role — or dance-on role (he was a clogger) — in an episode of the now-defunct television series "California Dreams."

He then landed his first theatrical film, a bit part in Mel Brooks' 1993 spoof "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."

Since then, Allred has, of course, gone on to bigger things:

• In 1999, he had a small role in "Anywhere But Here," with Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon, and co-starred with Kirk Douglas and Dan Aykroyd in "Diamonds."

• He has two sitcoms under his belt, both short-lived 1997 efforts, "Social Studies" and "Teen Angel."

• And more recently, he has had guest-star roles in such popular TV dramas as "CSI," "Judging Amy," "Jag," "Monk," "Navy NCIS," "Seventh Heaven" and "ER."

But he says he's perhaps most proud of his work in the new World War II drama "Saints and Soldiers," which opens in local theaters today.

"It's not as if I regret any role I've ever taken," Allred said. "But this is really what it's all been about for me. This is the type of project that an actor dreams about making."

Allred stars as Nathan "Deacon" Greer, a U.S. Army sharpshooter and part of a quartet of American GIs who escape German captivity and flee into the Ardennes Forest (filmed in Alpine).

"It's a very sneaky movie," Allred said. "It's set during World War II, but the setting is used to explore issues of faith and redemption."

"Saints and Soldiers" has already played at nearly two dozen film festivals — winning awards from 13. And as Allred points out, half of those were audience-voted awards. "That was very important to us. It showed us that the movie was going over well with audiences. And these weren't LDS crowds, either. These were festivals across the country, in California and in the Midwest."

Which, Allred believes, speaks to the universal nature of the story. He said that even though his character in the film is LDS — with references to him having served a mission to Germany — the character's specific religion is deliberately vague. "I'm playing the character as if he is LDS, but that's really not that important. What it comes down to is his faith in God."

Allred said he and the filmmakers were mortified when "Saints and Soldiers" initially received an R rating from the MPAA's Classification and Ratings Administration. "I don't think any of us ever thought that would happen. I mean, we knew we made a war movie that wasn't soft, but war is ugly. War is violent. We didn't flinch away from that. But we certainly didn't think we went to R-rated extremes."