Fans longing to see James Spader back on the big screen again will soon get their wish, appropriately, with "Shorts" -- the actor's first film since he began his Emmy-winning turn as attorney Alan Shore on the acclaimed television drama, "Boston Legal," in 2004.

It's not that Spader, 49, doesn't like doing movies. It's just that after five years working long days on the set of "Boston Legal" (which wrapped up in the spring) the last thing he wanted to do was hop back to it during his down time.

"I never did any work besides the show while I was doing the show -- I could never understand how actors doing one-hour dramas would all of a sudden show up in a film," Spader said in a recent @ The Movies interview. "I always wondered how they could do that. Whenever we would go on hiatus, I'd just collapse."

Opening in theaters Friday, "Shorts" follows the exploits of 11-year-old Toe Thompson (Jimmy Bennett), a punching bag for the local bullies whose life mystically changes when he happens upon a rainbow-colored wishing rock that fell from the sky. But as the rock makes its way through Jimmy's neighborhood in the city of Black Falls and other kids and parents don't heed to the warning of being careful what they wish for, chaos erupts.

Spader plays Carbon Black, the namesake of the Black Falls, owner of Black Box Industries the inventor of Black Box -- a do-it-all gadget that's sweeping the nation. And while the character could technically be classified as a villain in "Shorts," Spader said Black isn't nearly as nefarious as prior bad guys he's played.

"He's not much of a villain," Spader said, laughing. "I've tried to split my career between playing good guys and bad guys, and I enjoy doing both. I've always relished playing a great villain, but this is a really imaginative, fun and chaotic kids' picture, so in the end, there are no bad guys."

The person responsible for the madcap enthusiasm in "Shorts" is none other than writer-director Robert Rodriguez -- the imaginative filmmaker who's known as much for his family action adventures including "Spy Kids" and its sequel than he is for shoot 'em-ups like "Desperado" and "Sin City," and horror thrillers like "From Dusk 'Til Dawn" and "Planet Terror."

"What's so funny about 'Shorts' is, if you've seen a broad range of Robert's other films, is that, even if his films are made for grown-ups, they still live within the same fantasy world," Spader said. "His genre stays away from gritty realism. All of his films are so fantasy-laden. That's where Robert's head is. He's found this pursuit in his life that has allowed him not to grow have to up."

Spader said he signed on to do "Shorts" mainly because he's never really done a family film before, and also because he's long been fascinated with the work of director. Rodriguez famously launched his career in 1992 with "El Mariachi" on a $7,000 budget – and Spader is blown away by how the self-made moviemaker is involved in every aspect of all of his films to this very day.

"I wanted to do the film because I was just so curious about his operation in Austin, Texas. I was only there a week, but what a week it was," Spader recalled. "What he is able to able to accomplish in a week is, I promise you, a month on any other production. Believe me, I have spent half my career doing pictures on the run in different cities, riding in the back of some vehicle, one step ahead of the authorities trying to get something on film for as little money as we possibly could."

Still, Spader said there's something about the can-do attitude of Rodriguez that separates this experience from the others.

"Robert's facility builds these pictures from the very beginning to the very end, all in-house," Spader said. "Robert's a unique character and it was that curiosity about him and how he works that got me to do it. He's absolutely unique in the scope and dichotomy of the pictures he makes."