Saturday, March 2, 1996 By LOUIS B. HOBSON --

NEW YORK -- Next time you visit the Big Apple and slip into a bar, pay attention to the bartender.

He could be the next Bruce Willis. She could be the next Linda Fiorentino.

"When Bruce and I were both struggling actors, we worked the same bar for a while," recalls Fiorentino.

"It's a good thing I got a break because I was hopeless behind the bar."

Fiorentino's big break came in 1984 when she was called to L.A. to audition for the romantic drama Vision Quest.

"I knew nothing about auditioning for movies. The audition seemed like such a waste of time that I didn't think I could possibly get the part.

"I left Los Angeles without telling anyone. The casting agents looked all over for me for four days. They finally got hold of me at the bar where I was working at 4 a.m."

For then next 10 years, Fiorentino found herself cast in small roles in big pictures (After Hours) or big parts in small movies (Queen's Logic).

In 1994, one of these big part/small movie roles paid off. Fiorentino was cast as a manipulative murderess in John Dahl's moody erotic thriller The Last Seduction. And last year, she starred as a psychologist with a secret life in the thriller Jade.

Now Fiorentino is reunited with Dahl for the sci-fi thriller Unforgettable. She plays a scientist who develops a drug that allows the user to tap into the minds of people living or dead.

"I'm not the least bit aggressive in Unforgettable. I know that's going to throw some people for a loop. Because of The Last Seduction, they just can't conceive that I need protection."

Ray Liotta, who stars opposite Fiorentino in Unforgettable, says the actress is a bit of a nerd.

"She's such an intelligent person that she always has a lot on her mind. You can see the wheels turning. Sometimes they turn faster than her feet and she bumps into things or trips over them."

Since both Liotta and Fiorentino have established screen reputations for being intense and intensely sexual, she knows people will be waiting for a steamy sex scene in Unforgettable.

"That scene was definitely in the earliest versions of the screenplay and the studio fought to keep it in, but Ray, John and I all agreed it would be gratuitous sex.

"We didn't even shoot it. Now that was a disappointment. I was looking forward to the rehearsal and the shoot even though I didn't want the scene in the movie."

Fiorentino is delighted with her new sexy image: "I grew up a pretty shy Catholic girl. I was the middle of eight children and I was really timid until I got out of college at 22."

She shocked family and friends when she revealed in an interview last year that she would like to have a child but that she's not interested in getting married.

"I'm a very maternal person ... I do want that child. I do want to be a mother, but I'm not actively trying to get pregnant.

"I'm not pulling a Madonna or anything. I haven't taken out advertisements in singles newspapers or anything."

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