  Hilton with director Darren Lynn Bousman. Paris stars in his film Repo! The Genetic Opera. (Kevin Williamson, Sun Media)
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SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- Baking cookies? That's hot!
We're paraphrasing, of course, but Paris Hilton says she's no longer the omnipresent dirt magnet and party girl our world has come to know/love/resent/envy/hate.
"I feel like I'm really grown up. I'm an adult now," the 27-year-old heiress said during a sit-down with Sun Media. "I'm in a really great relationship and in love, so I stay home a lot."
Hilton the love-struck homebody? Slaving over a simmering stove and all that cookie dough?
Balk, scoff, sneer, gag all you want. It's more or less how director Darren Lynn Bousman reacted when Hilton informed him she'd fallen head over Paris-brand footwear for Good Charlotte's Benji Madden.
"When she told me she had met this guy and was in love, I said, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.' But then I went to her house and it's obvious to tell she's a changed woman."
Bousman, the director of three Saw movies and Hilton's forthcoming big-screen rock-horror opera Repo! The Genetic Opera, is used to scaring people, naturally. But given our insatiable celebrity culture, this Paris talk is more terrifying than any head-bracelet designed by serial killer Jigsaw.
The potential victim count could be staggering. Who is TMZ going to stalk? What's going to happen with all those miniature dogs no one will want anymore? Whose jail-bound cavalcade are we going to watch in 48-inch hi-def?
These are questions for another day, so back to Hilton. Here to promote Repo! at her first Comic-Con -- "I love it," she purrs convincingly of the pop-culture mecca -- she is poised, polite, soft-spoken, casual and even chatty. Not quite a revelation, but not what is expected, either.
"I think there are a lot of misconceptions (about me). I think people, from watching my reality show The Simple Life -- where I was playing this airhead, rich brat kind of character -- seven years later, people still picture me as that character, even though I'm completely different from that. I think people are blown away when they meet me and see I'm not who they read about on the Internet, or in the tabloids."
Her own cast-mates admit to confronting their Paris-centric prejudices when she signed on to the film about repo men who collect brand-name body parts from credit deadbeats.
"A year ago when you heard the name 'Paris Hilton,' not good things came to mind," says 19-year-old star Alexa Vega, best known from the Spy Kids franchise. "She was in jail at the time when I found out about all this. The first thing I thought was, 'We want to make a movie -- why are you bringing her into this?' But she was so professional, a sweet girl, so fun to work with. She is so different from that image I had in my mind ... I visited her at home and she was just hanging out, baking cookies."
And, no, that's not a euphemism.
"I thought, 'You're so different from the way you were a year ago.' It's so nice to see that transformation happen."
Hilton, who used to have no qualms about partying sans panties, can even envision a future with a semblance of privacy and fewer camera strobes.
"Hopefully one day. I actually just moved to a gated community, so I don't have the problem of TMZ and a million paparazzi outside my house. It's nice to be safe."
And she is clearly gratified at having landed the Repo! gig after wowing the filmmakers during her audition. And, no, that's not a euphemism either.
"Just getting a role like this is huge for me because I always get offered the same role, basically playing myself," Hilton says. "In every scene I look completely different. Throughout the film I had different prosthetics, different hair, different eyes, different chins. I was never that blond."
What did Madden think of her constantly-evolving appearance?
"He thought it was really hot."
Like, we had to ask.
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