Actor has no problem with cats getting top billing

Guy Pearce is a cat lover.

“Been around them all my life, fascinating creatures,” Pearce says. “Very clever, very secure, born hunters, playful, protective of their space and their own, but affectionate enough if you treat them with respect. All the qualities you look for in a human friend — and rarely find.”

It appears Pearce shares their sense of security.

Few actors would allow themselves to be billed below two felines. But the star of “Memento” and “L.A. Confidential” was happy to see the names of Asian tigers Kumal and Sangha above the title of “Two Brothers,” the new adventure fable from Jean Jacques Annaud, director of the acclaimed wildlife drama “The Bear.”

“It’s their story. They deserve it, God bless them,” says the Australian actor. “The cats do all the work. I just got to admire them.”

In the film, the tigers’ father, the acknowledged ruler of a Southeast Asia jungle, is killed by Pearce’s character, Aidan — a big game hunter turned smuggler — when he attacks one of the locals helping Aidan loot a temple ruin.

One of the cubs, Sangha, escapes with his mother, while the other, Kumal, is captured by Aidan. Kumal is sold to a trainer in a seedy circus, but — in a story that Annaud says owes a large debt to Kipling and “fables I loved as a child, with the golden palace, the world of animals, the circus, the hunter, the beautiful native girl, the animal tamer” — the tigers, matured and magnificent, are destined to be reunited.

In the original script, Pearce had no scenes involving the adult versions of the two tigers.

“I argued that there had to be a scene between Aidan and the adult tigers for the sake of the story,” he says. “But actually it was about me wanting to be in the same frame with one of them.”

Eventually, Pearce wore down Annaud and animal trainer Thierry Le Portier, who had worked with the director on “The Bear” and also supervised the lion and tiger scenes in “Gladiator.”

Though all the other scenes with the adult tigers were filmed in what is called “double pass” — the tigers are filmed first, then the actors — a plan was devised that would put a cat and Pearce in the same frame without jeopardizing his safety.

“I crouched behind Guy, and I had my assistants on either side,” Le Portier says. “As the tiger walked toward us, I watched his eyes. As long as he showed no interest in Guy, I let him come closer. If he had even looked in his (Pearce’s) direction, I would have stood up behind Guy, taking the tiger’s attention, and Guy would have had to leave.”

Pearce says the crew had positioned a safety cage just outside of frame, so he could have backed right into it.

He had no such apprehension with the cubs, which he cuddles in the first section of the movie.

“You can see it on-screen. I just adored them,” says Pearce. “Jean-Jacques would call ‘cut’ and I couldn’t put them down.

“They’re little, but they’re very heavy, very strong, and they bond quickly. One of them actually started following me around.”