HOLLYWOOD -- Sometimes a cranky Connery forgets all about the sensitive Sean in him.

To discover the difference, ask the mild Sean about actors who suffer for their art.

"You meet someone striving too hard to meet their projections and it doesn't work," says the suddenly scowling 65-year-old Scot. "The person who is more still, and more receiving, will appear to be more interesting every time."

Method emoting, in other words, is not for him.

It never has been - not from his James Bond hunk days in the '60s to his aging-gracefully roles in the '90s.

To the latter, add King Arthur, his role in First Knight (opening Friday). He plays opposite Julia Ormond's Guinevere and Richard Gere's Lancelot.

Certainly, Connery's royal presence served him well.

"I also had a little rehearsal in Prince Of Thieves," he says, referring to Kevin Costner's Robin Hood movie. "I had all of 60 seconds playing Richard the King."

His screen time is considerably more in the Jerry Zucker movie of the legend, filmed in London and area during the Gere-Cindy Crawford marriage break-up.

Of course, Connery refuses to say the controversy affected him, while skirting the issue of his alleged sour relationship with Gere.

"As I say, I have no interest in things that don't affect the set," he says.

Connery does get rankled when he's requested to comment on the '90s intensity of fan and media coverage, and the bodyguard mentality that goes with it.

"I think there is a lot of nonsense around," says the former semi-pro soccer player, who became a bodybuilder with hard work and an actor on a dare.

"If there are any weirdos around, and let's face it there are, they have more of a reason for catching up to somebody if that somebody goes around with dark glasses, a hat and a coat, and two guys six-foot-six on either side."

No entourage for Connery. No bodyguards either. He lives in Spain and the Bahamas, and only makes himself available for movie jobs when he wants to.

"You reach a point of acceptability by just being around long enough."

And that he has after four decades, dating back to his acting debut in the chorus of the London musical South Pacific.

And then, there is always the Bond thing.

"Yes," he says as the good-natured Sean, resigned to the fact that he'll never shake that '60s past.

"I have these grandchildren, who are French. They can barely speak English but they can quote lines from the Bond movies. They actually relate me to the Bond movies more than the movies I have out now."

Obviously, he's not haunted by his past. He's amused by it.

The Sean in Connery smiles.


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