BEVERLY HILLS -- Kurt Russell is still trying to deal with his Cro-Magnon heritage.

"I think that it's only in recent years that women have felt it necessary to watch their backs in public. These horrible urban muggings and rapes have imposed a new and essential paranoia on women," explains Russell.

"Historically, men have expected to be challenged whenever they go into public.

"Men walk down a street prepared to be challenged and no man walks into a bar without the awareness that he could be defending his honor if not his life before he walks out."

Russell's thoughts on self defence as inbred male trait are inspired by his new film Breakdown.

Russell, 46, plays a man on vacation with his wife. When their car breaks down, she agrees to ride a scant five miles into town with a kindly trucker to call for a tow truck.

The wife vanishes and Russell's character is left to unravel the terrifying mystery of her disappearance.

"The reason the wife gets into the truck in the first place is that she is by nature more trusting.

"When men's eyes meet, they invariably wonder if this is time they are going to get attacked.

"This has certainly been the case in my worlds. I started out as an athlete and ended up as an actor. In both these worlds men are always aware and on guard."

Russell admits he has become a victim of urban angst.

"I feel more comfortable in the woods. I'm a real nature person."

It was for this reason that Russell was so distraught and disappointed with the reaction of neighbors, curiosity seekers and the press when he and his longtime lover actress Goldie Hawn moved into a beach front property in the Muskokas in Ontario.

Hawn complained at a press junket that some of tourists in the Muskokas were unforgivably rude because they kept invading her family's privacy.

Her remarks touched off a wave of controversy in the area as the press reported her comments and the adverse reactions of the locals.

"Goldie never accused any of the locals of being rude. She was quite specific that it was tourists trying to get pictures of us who came right into our bay.

"No one would have tolerated that."

Breakdown is Russell's second urban horror tale in the past few years. In Unlawful Entry, he starred as a man whose home and life is invaded by a psychotic policeman played by Ray Liotta.

"The entertainment appeal of movies like Breakdown and Unlawful Entry is that the viewer puts himself into the predicament of the characters.

"The audience has to believe you could die. I think they see me as one of them. I'm a vulnerable kind of guy."

Breakdown has already been compared to such Steven Spielberg suspense films as Jaws and Duel.

Russell says it isn't the suspense or terror of the chases and action sequences that cause shivers in Breakdown.

"It's the fact that so many people really do disappear each year with no trace. Our film provides one creepy possibility."

A great deal of the suspense in Breakdown relies on the car chases which ensue.

"I used to be a race car driver so I did quite a bit of the driving myself. The really spectacular stuff is all stunt drivers. It's because I know cars so well that I would never have attempted some of those stunts myself."

Russell says he is in the middle of an 18-month hiatus.

His next project is the science fiction thriller Soldier.


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