Like a lot of actors, Tom McCarthy wants to direct films. The difference is, he actually does direct when he can.

The character actor, who was seen most recently in "Baby Mama" (a brief bit as Tina Fey's date at the start of the movie) and as a sleazy journalist in HBO's "The Wire," made his feature filmmaking debut in 2003 with "The Station Agent."

That movie became a hit at the Sundance Film Festival and he hopes for similar things for his latest, "The Visitor."

"So far, so good. We're doing well in limited release. And 'Baby Mama' was No. 1, so it's been a pretty good week for me," he said. ("The Visitor" opens locally on Friday.)

Still, no matter how the movie winds up performing, McCarthy says he's proud of "The Visitor" because he made it on his own terms.

"I'm lucky because I've been able to be choosy about the projects I've agreed to do," he said from Denver, where he was helping promote the film.

"The roles I've taken in films and television are ones that interest me," McCarthy continued. "And the stories I've been able to tell in my movies are stories that interest me."

And "The Visitor" was definitely of interest to McCarthy. He wrote and directed the comedy-drama about an uptight economics professor (Richard Jenkins) who discovers that a pair of illegal immigrants (Haaz Sleiman and Danai Jekesai Gurira) is staying in his unoccupied New York City apartment.

The film touches on the immigration debate, post-9/11 security issues and xenophobia, but "without being too obvious or too heavy-handed about it."

"First and foremost, though, it's about characters and how they react to an initially uncomfortable situation," McCarthy said.

"The Visitor" also allowed him to return to Sundance, where the film was warmly received this year. It had already screened at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival and had gotten a distribution deal with Overture Films at that point.

"(Sundance) was a bit like coming home. We had no real worries and could just sit back and see how the film played with those terrific festival audiences. They were great to us," he said. "Plus, I even had time to do some skiing."

"The Visitor" has already opened in a few major markets, but its release is "expanding" in the next few weeks, which means it will compete with large studio releases like "Iron Man" and the second "Chronicles of Narnia" movie.

But McCarthy has no reservations about "going toe-to-toe with the big boys."

"Bring 'em on, I say!" he said, laughing. "Seriously, we're such a different film and this is such a different audience we're going for that I have no worries," he quickly added.

Also, McCarthy said he is not averse to making a major-studio film and that he has had some offers. "So far, I just haven't really found anything that interests me enough to take them up on those offers. But I'm certainly not ruling out that possibility."

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E-mail: jeff@desnews.com