NEW YORK -- In her classy designer gown that impressed the style mavens, Angelina Jolie looked "faaaabulous, dahling" at the Oscars two weeks ago.

But don't suggest to the 28-year-old daughter of American actor Jon Voight and French actress Marcheline Bertrand that looking flash on the red carpet at the Academy Awards is a make-it or break-it factor in a movie star's career.

"Is that true, seriously?" she says when the subject is broached during interviews for her new gritty, violent and anti-glamour thriller, Taking Lives.

"I could honestly try," she says of analyzing the dichotomy between Hollywood glamour and Hollywood acting, "but I don't think any of that stuff should be taken too seriously -- like Oscars and ceremonies and dresses and clothes. It shouldn't be taken so seriously with any real discussion. I think I've done it well sometimes. I think I've done it badly sometimes -- and I'm still working."

Jolie, whose past public appearances have ranged from scary Goth girl in black to the drop-dead-gorgeous classic look she sported at the Oscars this year, is also concerned that the growing obsession with style is boxing the stars into a limited range of styles. "I honestly think it shouldn't be discussed so much, so then people would be a little freer, a little more creative, and have a lot more fun."

Even the glamourous magazine cover shoots are getting too predictable, too stage-managed, Jolie says. "Now you get a bunch of creative people in a room and it all looks so perfect and nice and lovely -- and I've done that, too. But I don't think so much weight should be put on it. I don't think it should be such a discussion. It's not that important."

Still, Jolie is reminded, she looked "damn good" at the Oscars. "Thank you very much," she says with a sheepish grin. "You're going to present (an Oscar). It's your job. You're part of this profession and so you're going to dress appropriately for the occasion. Sometimes I don't and sometimes I do but I decided to dress appropriately to present (this time)."

Clearly, though, the heavily tattooed Jolie is uncomfortable talking about fashion, style and glamour even this much. It is like the gossip about her love life (in her post-Billy Bob Thornton world, she has been linked recently to both Jared Leto and Colin Farrell on the set of Alexander but both those reports came the same week from an unreliable British tabloid source that is known for outlandish rumour-mongering). Those elements of Hollywood have nothing to do with her acting craft, Jolie says. Glamour is irrelevant "unless the character calls for this."

While publicity photographs for D.J. Caruso's Taking Lives -- in which Jolie plays an FBI special agent on loan to Canada to help Montreal cops track a serial killer -- make her look great, and even though she has a hot sex scene in which she shows her breasts, Jolie is neither glamourous nor sexy throughout most of the film. Instead, she is more in the guise of Jodie Foster's character in Silence Of The Lambs: Professional, trim, not overtly out there in a movie star sense. She is perceived as sexy only by the killer.

"It's always nice to do a real shoot where you get inside your head, your mind," Jolie says of playing a complicated character like Special Agent Illeana Scott, who is strong enough to operate in a man's world but flawed enough to make mistakes. Jolie co-stars with Ethan Hawke, Kiefer Sutherland, Gena Rowlands and a trio of French actors, Olivier Martinez, Tcheky Karyo and Jean-Hughes Anglade (unfortunately, the American filmmakers foolishly made little use of Montreal actors, except in throwaway roles).

Jolie explains the lure of the project: "I love the script (by Jon Bokencamp from the Michael Pye novel). I just thought it was really smart for this kind of genre. Sometimes these films are average and really kind of predictable and sometimes they're original and interesting -- and this one was one of those and it had great characters. And then I heard Ethan was doing it and I think he's such an amazing artist. The character work he does and the depth he takes things to ..." She does not complete the thought as she shows, in her face, her respect for Hawke.

Hawke, like Jolie, says it was inviting to do a film such as Taking Lives because it is a genre piece played by serious actors. "I haven't done a lot of what you'd call genre movies," Hawke says, citing Training Day with Oscar winner Denzel Washington as his first such effort.

"It's really hard to make a cop picture that's different and unique and special when you've got four cop shows every night on TV and three different cop movies that come out (in the same season). So, to make one that's special is going to rely on the uniqueness of the personalities involved in the story." For Hawke, Training Day was elevated by Washington. "It turned me on to working inside a certain formula." That made the choice of Taking Lives easier.

"Thrillers have a really set way, how they work. I'm learning. I wanted to do the movie because I had never worked in this genre and very few mainstream movies give you an opportunity to play a really complex person. Most of the mainstream movies have a ... simple characterization of people."

That proved to be a challenge on Taking Lives, Jolie says. The characters were so rich the star cast had to be reminded to make sure the thriller had thrills.

"It ended up being a real study in human behaviour and good character work for the actors," Jolie says, "so I think that helps to make it not just a scary thriller -- although it is that, too. I think we did realize halfway through it that we were focusing a lot on characters and the love interests and the friendships and the arguments and we kind of needed to remember that we were doing a thriller.

"We needed to make sure we had the scares, the very specific moments of jump-out-of-your-seat frights. There was a time when we realized we wanted to pump that side of it up because we did come in, all of us, as actors (worrying about) 'my back story, my character.' So we did kind of get into just the wild fun of shocking moments."

At the same time, Jolie wanted to refine her character, even at the script stage. Because Jolie has clout, she worked extensively with the filmmakers to rough up the role.

"It's great when there's a strong woman in the film but I tend not to like women that are perfect, that come in and they're tough, they're strong, they're cool and they're flawless. So we wanted to make sure that she was very human, had her own issues, was a bit flawed, was a bit insecure."

Better to do that, she says, than to play "the cocky, cool chick who comes in with all the answers."

Jolie is obviously talented as well as being a bombshell heartthrob for millions of men (and some women, too). She is an Oscar winner as best supporting actress for Girl, Interrupted (1999), her only nomination to date.

"She is a fantastic actress," Caruso says. While prejudiced, of course, Caruso gets more specific. "When they slipped me the script and said she was interested, that's one of the reasons I got interested," Caruso says of Taking Lives, naming her Emmy-nominated performance in the 1998 TV film Gia as the source of his awe. "I still think, to this day, that is one of the great female performances of our lifetime. I mean, it just blows me away!

"I was happy she would do it," Caruso says of Jolie signing on for Taking Lives, "because there are so many women that Hollywood tries to make tough and bad and vulnerable -- and they shouldn't!"

They should with Jolie -- so he did. Jolie is comfortable with that, even though actors usually rely on cliches and platitudes about being able to do anything.

"I also think you should know what you're good at as an actress," Jolie says, "and, as much as I'd love to do everything in the world, I know some actresses are better at some things than I am and I think I am good at other things."


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