Like so many of the British actors who've come to America to find film work, Frain is a chameleon both in appearance and voice. He admits he doesn't feel all that guilty about taking choice roles away from his American colleagues. "I'll bet a few guys are a bit upset I got those parts," Frain notes. "I know I probably would be if I were them. It's just that there is so much more film work in America than here in Britain. "If you want to be working in film -- and I do -- you've got to go to America."He got his big opportunity two years ago when Hilary and Jackie and Elizabeth both garnered Oscar nominations. He had starred in both and flew to Hollywood to join in the pre-Oscar celebrations. "I used the time to attend some audition meetings." One was with John Frankenheimer, who was looking for an unknown to play the villain in Reindeer Games. "John didn't know who I was. He cast me solely on our meeting. It was only while we were filming that he realized I was the guy from Elizabeth and Hilary and Jackie." While filming Reindeer Games in Vancouver, Frain got a call from his agent to hightail it to L.A. for a meeting with director Matt Williams. Producer and writer on such TV series as The Cosby Show, A Different World, Roseanne and Home Improvement, Williams was searching desperately to find someone to play Natalie Portman's love interest in the bittersweet drama Where the Heart Is.
Williams recalls that when Frain walked in for his reading (still in character as a jailbird for Reindeer Games), the actor struck him "as one of the scruffiest people I'd met. He began reading and I could instantly see Forney coming to life." Williams had interviewed several American actors for the role. "The American actors couldn't nail Forney. He's a weird guy. They were all trying to play him as the typical Hollywood cutie. James saw it's not Forney's looks that make him so appealing, but his wonderful soul." For Frain, winning the role had an added bonus. He'd be working opposite Portman. "I've been a fan of Natalie's since I first saw her in The Professional. I've seen everything she's done. "She's a remarkable talent. I put her right up there with people like Cate Blanchett and Emily Watson. "Natalie kept saying she thought she'd give up the whole acting thing one day soon. "I told her it'd be criminal, seeing she has been blessed with so much talent."
Frain made his film debut opposite Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger in 1993 in Shadowlands. He was a drama student at the time. "Richard Attenborough was doing a search of drama schools looking for an unknown. I was lucky enough to be the one he liked."
Frain has seven brothers and sisters. When he told his parents he wanted to be an actor, they assumed it was just a stage he would quickly grow out of. "They said things like: 'Very nice, son, but how will you make a living?' "But most of my brothers and sisters have gone into the arts as well, so my parents will have to take the blame for fostering it in us."