HOLLYWOOD -- A word of warning to actors and filmmakers.

Madeleine Stowe doesn't pull any punches.

Stowe, who stars opposite Gary Sinise and Vincent D'Onofrio in the futuristic chase thriller Imposter, is still upset over her experience making the A&E mini-series The Magnificent Ambersons, which premieres in January.

The idea behind this special television event was to film Orson Welles's original 1942 shooting script because much of his movie was lost in the editing room.

Without Welles's permission or knowledge, RKO Studios cut his version of the Booth Tarkington novel to 88 minutes from 131 minutes. Worse still, the studio destroyed all of the footage they cut from the film.

An all-star cast including Stowe, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell, Jennifer Tilly, Gretchen Mol and Jonathan Rhys Meyers were assembled with Alfonso Arau, the director of Like Water for Chocolate and A Walk in the Clouds at the helm.

"It is the best screenplay I have ever read. I was so thrilled to be part of this great project, but what happened was a disaster," recalls Stowe.

"Arau didn't want to discuss his vision with the actors, nor did he want any input from any of us about our characters. All he wanted to talk about was incest. It was 12 weeks of agony. We had a chance to make cinema history and, because of Arau, we botched it.

"It breaks my heart that we didn't do the material justice."

Imposter is based on a short story by science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick, whose works have inspired Blade Runner, Total Recall and Tom Cruise's next film, Minority Report.

Stowe plays a physician whose husband (Sinise) is accused of being a robot bomb. Think Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets The Fugitive and The Manchurian Candidate.

"Essentially I play the innocent because she doesn't know what's going on or who to believe. She's very much a peripheral character. The film belongs to Gary as the fugitive who claims he's innocent and Vincent as the man who is determined to find and eliminate him at any cost."


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