Key characteristic: Awkwardness.

Optional characteristics: Mild depression; soulfulness; a love of obscure pop culture; clumsiness; moodiness; a fear of taking his hands out of his pockets; cynicism; a belief that no-one (good looking) will ever really understand him.

Perfect picks here include Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid And The Whale, Adventureland, Zombieland, From Rome With Love) or Michael Cera (Paper Heart, Juno, Youth In Revolt, Arrested Development), whose particular set of antisocial skills are the best in the mainstream indie business.

If you'd like a more conventionally handsome gawky male lead, consider Joseph Gordon-Levitt ((500) Days Of Summer), Orlando Bloom (Elizabethtown), Andrew Garfield (see Marc Webb’s (500) follow-up, The Amazing Spider-Man for details) and fresh-faced up-and-comer Logan Lehman, whose turn in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower has cemented his position on the gawky male lead hotlist.

Then there's John Krasinski, whose turns in The American Office, Sam Mendes' Away We Go and more make him the perfect slightly-older-but-not-too-typically-attractive gawky male lead, as well as How I Met Your Mother's (and Liberal Arts') Josh Radnor, who also fills a similar role.

Wardrobe: Cardigans, ill-fitting clothes, jumpers his mother bought him, t-shirts referencing arcane pop culture, a perma-grimace in any social context.