`I'M CERTAINLY NOT A MERMAID'; DARYL HANNAH FLIPS FOR CHANCE TO PLAY HUMAN IN `GINGERBREAD'.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Daily News Staff Writer

Daryl Hannah has played an android with a flair for gymnastics (``Blade Runner''), a mermaid (``Splash''), a prehistoric huntress (``Clan of the Cave Bear'') and even a giant (``The Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman'').

So when Robert Altman cast her in ``The Gingerbread Man'' as an attorney - no special effects, no bizarre costumes, no bells and whistles - she was thrilled.

``It was really fun,'' says the 37-year-old actress. ``It was actually the first time that I'd ever been cast in that way. And I think that's not so much because I don't go up for those roles.

``It's more that people tend to see you as something that you've done before. So other times where there's been a role of a doctor or lawyer or something, people just go, `Oh no, she's too ethereal, she's too blond, or she's too whatever.'

``And you're like, hello, that's the color of your hair,'' Hannah says. ``I'm an actress. I mean, that's what I do. Just because I've played ethereal doesn't mean I AM ethereal, and just because I played a lawyer doesn't mean I am a lawyer either.

``It blows my mind that casting directors and directors tend to see you as what you've played before. Because they're in the movie business you'd think they'd know that it doesn't mean that you were cast in this role because that's what you are. I'm certainly not a mermaid, you know. I'm not an android or whatever.

``I was really lucky because Robert Altman was one of the few people who actually said, `Oh, you can be a professional, grown-up woman. Why not?' '' she adds. ``It was really, really nice.''

Southern thriller

Hannah co-stars with Kenneth Branagh in this John Grisham thriller set in Savannah, Ga. Moviegoers who are looking for that ``too blond'' version of Hannah will have to look more closely.

She's Lois Harlan, that statuesque auburn-haired woman with glasses who gently rebuffs law partner Branagh's sexual advances, even while making it clear that she wishes she weren't always so sensible.

She says the look was not meant to make her less appealing to Branagh's Rick Magruder character. On the contrary.

``It was actually devised so I would be seen as another woman figure in his life because he's drawn to the same type of woman, sort of the same physical type, skinny girls with short dark hair,'' she says. ``So I would be another variation on a theme.''

The characters in ``The Gingerbread Man'' represent the many social strata of coastal Georgia, from Robert Duvall's poorly educated hermit to Famke Janssen's bitter, socially conscious ex-wife of Magruder. But none of the lead actors came from that area.

In fact, the ensemble seems more like a United Nations committee than a bunch of Southerners.

Branagh, of course, is from England, while Janssen hails from the Netherlands. Embeth Davidtz, who plays a waitress stalked by her father, grew up and began acting in South Africa. Robert Downey Jr., who plays the law firm's frequently soused private detective, is a bicoastal New York-L.A. type, as is Duvall. Both Hannah and Tom Berenger, who plays Davidtz's ex-husband, spent their youths in Chicago.

For this melting pot of actors, a dialect coach was an absolute necessity to get everybody singing from the same song sheet, or map page, if you will.

``She had provided each of us with tape of the dialect that would be specific to our characters,'' Hannah says. ``We discussed what socioeconomic backgrounds they had, because just within each region there are many, many different accents.

``When we started working I listened to mine over and over and over until I really got into the rhythm of it, and then it just becomes like music,'' she says. ``When you get into the rhythm of it you can improvise in it.''

Improvisation is a hallmark of an Altman film.

``Bob encourages that, especially when it's appropriate,'' Hannah says. ``He likes the characters to stay alive, and not just be there to present their lines, so he likes everyone to talk over each other.

``He has the greatest sound man in the world because he miked one scene, the party scene, 25 people at the same time. And there were two cameras moving around so you never knew when they were on you and when they weren't, so you had to be living your part and your character at all times, and then also at the right moment be there to deliver the piece of information that you have to deliver. The dailies from that scene were just amazing.''

Enthusiastic set

Hannah may be more anxious than many actors to see dailies - the previous day's raw footage - and watch directors at work, having studied film production at New York University and produced and directed her own short, titled ``The Last Supper.''

She says she's inclined to ask directors lots of questions about everything from film stock choices to lighting techniques, and Altman was one who readily indulged her.

``He loves what he does, and he loves it when you're interested, too, because he is interested,'' she says. ``That's why I think he has such great success with the people he works with and everyone wants to work with him again and again and again. It's contagious, his enthusiasm for the work, and he really wants everyone involved in it.''

Hannah's next project takes her back to her roots - the Scandinavian blond ones on her head.

She has the title role in Paramount's ``The Real Blonde,'' coming out Feb. 27. Maxwell Caulfield plays a rising soap opera star who is obsessed with sleeping with a ``real blonde,'' and Hannah is his on-screen love interest and the target of his personal obsession.

It was written and directed by Tom DiCillo, whose previous credits include ``Box of Moonlight'' and ``Living in Oblivion.''

``He's a very twisted, funny man in the best way, and it's a very twisted and funny movie in the best way, too,'' Hannah says. ``It's really good.

``That's why I normally have a hard time doing press, because I can't lie about something and say something is good if I don't think it is. But I'm really lucky right now because I have two movies coming out that I really like.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) Daryl Hannah's trademark blond locks give way to auburn in her role as Kenneth Branagh's law partner in ``The Gingerbread Man,'' which co-stars Embeth Davidtz, right.

(2) Hannah is the object of Maxwell Caulfield's infatuation in ``The Real Blonde,'' due out Feb. 27.