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HOLLYWOOD -- What's an alleged brashy bitch doing in a confirmed riotous comedy? An uncharacteristically perky Linda Fiorentino says matter-of-factly that she's just making a living.
She might add giving herself a tremendous career boost, too, since the Tommy Lee Jones-Will Smith sci-fi funfest is headed for hitsville.
Co-star Fiorentino plays a Manhattan medical examiner who teams up with Smith and Jones to battle the forces of an unwelcome alien.
The climax suggests two things -- the sequel might be called Men And Women In Black, and one of the women will probably be Fiorentino.
"I like that last scene," she says referring to the battle sequence, which involves her character. "It means I might have another job."
There were times in her erratic career when she thought she'd never work again. Would you believe one of those times was during her first film, Vision Quest, with Matthew Modine.
"Yeah," says the 37-year-old.
"I cried every night. It rained every day during the shoot, and I cried every night because I thought the movie was terrible."
She chuckles at herself.
"Then After Hours came along," she says of her scene-stealing Dominatrix role in the Martin Scorsese film, "and I said, 'Okay, I'll try it again.' "
Twelve years later, Fiorentino has had as many good reviews as bad, but she's mostly remembered as the heartless sex kitten in The Last Seduction and as a no-nonsense interviewee who can be as nasty as she wants to be with unsuspecting reporters.
Despite her shiny disposition on this occasion, Fiorentino lapses into terseness when it is suggested to her that a sly agent must have talked her into the Men In Black movie.
"Do you think," Fiorentino snorts, "anybody could tell me what to do?"
The answer is as obvious to Fiorentino as it is to the unfortunate who asked the question.
Her next picture, an untitled heist movie formerly called Body Count, is back-to-the-edge basics for the actress. But, again, she stresses the coincidence of it all.
"I don't think in terms of changing my image, going from comedy to femme fatale," she says. "I think in terms of whether or not I'm working. Everything else is extraneous to me.
"I'm kind of specific. I'm on the set, and it's 'Where's my mark and what time is lunch?' "
You must have the power of your own destiny.
"There are so many misconceptions," Fiorentino says.
"First, everybody thinks you're a millionaire -- I'm not. Second, they think you have this control -- I don't."
Fiorentino laughs devilishy.
"What I think is this," she says. "There is only the next job, or your last job.
"And also, be careful of your choices, if you do get to choose, because whatever it is will haunt you on cable for the rest of your life."