Perfectly Frank

With the bearing of a baby-faced gangster, actor Frank Whaley enters a cafe, walks past a display case of palmiers and madeleines, sits down, and innocently asks the waitress, "You got a muffin or somethin'?" His charm has served him well: the seeming guilelessness he brought to his character in Hoffa delivers that film's only memorable punch; he was equally apt—and equally guileless—as Matthew Broderick's roommate in The Freshman. This month Whaley, 29, plays a music-loving anti-Nazi German youth in Swing Kids, from Disney's Hollywood Pictures. "There's no way that Disney could have put a happy ending on this one," says Whaley. "It takes place in Germany in 1939. It's nothing to smile about."

H.A.