Sometimes you're in a movie about the atrocities of the slave trade. Sometimes you're playing a reclusive artist dying of AIDS. Sometimes you're doing a film about the horrors of the blood diamond industry.

And sometimes you just gotta be a fabulously wealthy, ridiculously good-looking supporting character in a romantic comedy. Because man cannot live by drama, death and darkness alone.

"It's nice to diversify and do something slightly different," says Djimon Hounsou, an actor whose career has ranged from award-nominated dramatic turns in Amistad, In America and Blood Diamond to much lighter fare like Baggage Claim, opening in theatres Friday.

Baggage Claim sees the two-time Oscar nominee playing Quinton Jamison, a fabulously rich and successful ex-boyfriend of marriage-hungry flight attendant Montana Moore, played by Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol star (and wife of Robin Thicke) Paula Patton. It's about as fluffy as fluffy gets, and sometimes that's OK.

"It is fun to go to set without having to really think, 'Ah damn, what is the environment this takes place in, what is this character, what is his conviction,' " says Hounsou, 49.

Hounsou has the freedom to bounce back and forth between soul-searching drama and less meaty fare as he sees fit, but lately he's leaning more towards the fantastical end of the spectrum, with the upcoming horror/thriller The Vatican Tapes, the animated How to Train Your Dragon 2, a yet-to-be-divulged role in Fast & Furious 7 and Marvel's much talked-about Guardians of the Galaxy, which has Hounsou playing the alien baddie Korath the Pursuer.

"I never read any comic books when I was younger, I just remember one of my friends in Africa at a very young age used to carry these animated booklets with him - those were comic books, and he was passionate about them," Hounsou says.

Now that he's more plugged into the genre, Hounsou has his eye on another superhero role: T'Challa, a.k.a. the Black Panther, one of comicdom's earliest black superheroes.

"It would be an honour to be T'Challa," says Hounsou. "It would have to be done right, given the history of that character and that comic."

There's no word yet if a Black Panther movie is definitely in the cards, but Hounsou does hope his Guardians of the Galaxy escapade will eventually pay off in a more grounded hero role.

"I have a foot in the Marvel comics world now," he says. "So we'll see where they're going to take that."

steve.tilley@sunmedia.ca