For actor Benjamin McKenzie, better known as brood first, punch second Ryan from FOX’s “The OC,” life after one of TV’s most influential teen-dramas has been anything but expected.

“TV is a very powerful medium,” McKenzie said. “To be on a show that had some success and kind of permeated pop culture during its run . makes people associate you with that character, more so than if it was just a film or a short-lived experience.”

McKenzie plays Mike Stemp in 88 Minutes (Sony Pictures, April 18), a mystery-thriller centering around college professor and forensic psychiatrist Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) and the revenge-seeking criminal that was sentenced to death row after Gramm’s testimony-a far cry from McKenzie’s past roles.

“I’ve tried to do things that are a little bit outside the norm, or [outside of] what’s expected,” McKenzie said. “If I could only spend 88 minutes playing one role . maybe Dustin Hoffman’s role in Tootsie, that would certainly change the perception of me . If I’m only playing a role for 88 minutes, I might as well get to wear a dress.”

The decision for McKenzie to take on the role of college student Stemp was an easy one for the 29-year-old Texas native to make.

“My agent called me and said, ‘There’s a movie with Al Pacino,’ and I said, ‘Great, when can I start,'” McKenzie said. “Anytime you have the chance to work with a legendary figure, you take it . There is a lot to learn from them, both the way they act on-screen and the way they dedicate themselves off-screen.”

88 Minutes is McKenzie’s second motion picture, the first being 2005’s Oscar-nominated indie flick Junebug.

“[Junebug] was a new experience for me, since I spent so much of my time working on ‘The OC,'” McKenzie said. “[Any] break away from that was a new experience.

“88 [Minutes] was a more conventional movie, in a sense that it was a conventional thriller as opposed to a small indie like Junebug . I’ve taken different things away from each of them.”

With the success of “The OC” and a new starring role alongside one of Hollywood’s greats, McKenzie often finds himself in the center of the paparazzi-filled, Entertainment Weekly cover-child world of Los Angeles, much to the famous actor’s chagrin.

“I’m a low-profile guy, and, for the most part, I haven’t courted that attention,” he said. “It’s bizarre . I can certainly say that most of the people I know that are in the public eye are not that much more interesting than anyone else I know. That being said, I completely understand why people pick up US Weekly … I guess I get it; it’s just not for me.”

Also not for McKenzie is the typical, one-note actor route that makes many successful, but leaves little to the imagination.

McKenzie said he does not want to be known for working on things similar to “The OC,” such as teen dramas or chick-flick romantic films. Instead, he would like to get involved in plays and stage shows, something he said that he has not had time for as of late.

In the end, however, there is only so much he can do to shape his public persona.

“You only have so much power over it,” McKenzie said. “It basically comes down to what people think of you . Maybe I’ll just hole up in a cabin for a few years, chop some wood, work on my horseback-riding skills, something like that.”