`ONE FINE' EXPERIENCE : OPPOSITES-ATTRACT FORMULA WORKS ESPECIALLY WELL IN PAIRING OF PFEIFFER, CLOONEY IN ROMANTIC COMEDY.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

For all of its up-to-the-minute stuff about cell phones and single parenting, ``One Fine Day'' is really one of those old-fashioned romantic comedies in which a guy and a gal have incompatible personalities, rub each other the wrong way for most of the movie and fall giddily in love by the final reel.

The old opposites-attract formula works particularly well in this case because, well, when magnetism is the issue, it's hard to think of two bodies that exert more gravitational pull than Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney.

She is one of our most beautiful and accomplished movie stars, having proved that she's far more than a pretty face with choice performances in the likes of ``Dangerous Liaisons,'' ``The Fabulous Baker Boys,'' ``Love Field'' (all three Oscar-nominated), ``Tequila Sunrise,'' ``The Age of Innocence,'' ``Wolf,'' ``Batman Returns'' and many more.

He is Hollywood's man of the moment. Playing the demon-haunted pediatrician Dr. Douglas Ross on the hit NBC drama ``ER'' has turned Clooney into television's reigning heartthrob.

And his movie career could not be hotter. On the heels of ``One Fine Day'' and last January's horror movie hit ``From Dusk Till Dawn,'' Clooney headlined ``The Peacemaker,'' the crucial first feature film from the new megastudio DreamWorks SKG. And he's currently starring in ``Batman and Robin,'' replacing Val Kilmer as the Dark Knight detective in the lucrative superhero franchise's fourth entry. Both big action pictures are due out next summer.

But aside from their success and sex appeal, on closer inspection Pfeiffer and Clooney have little else in common. No wonder the comically contentious couple they play in ``One Fine Day'' generates sparks; that aspect of it did not require a whole lot of acting.

Let's begin with their takes on the film's basic premise.

``The love-hate thing?'' says skeptical Clooney, a divorced man whose long list of dating partners has included his leading lady's younger sister, ``Cybill'' regular Dedee Pfeiffer. ``Things are always elevated a little bit in the movies. In many ways, Jack (Taylor, his ``Fine Day'' character, a columnist for the New York Daily News) is brighter than I am, quicker-witted.

``In general, though, I don't think you can fight like that all of the time and end up in love,'' Clooney concludes. ``It would be a little exhausting. But it sure is fun to watch.''

``I think bickering's good; in fact, we fight well,'' Pfeiffer says proudly of herself and her husband, ``Chicago Hope'' creator David E. Kelley. And with two young children and demanding careers to juggle, it's understandable that good scrapping ability helps contribute to the health of the marriage.

Pfeiffer, who describes herself as a ``structured, not strict - but stricter than my friends'' kind of parent, assesses her bachelor co-star's skill with children in much the manner Melanie Parker, the controlling architect she plays in ``Fine Day,'' views Jack Taylor's loosey-goosey approach to fathering.

``George probably had an easier time with the child actors than I did,'' Pfeiffer says of kid co-stars Mae Whitman and Alex D. Linz, who's been tapped to star in the next ``Home Alone'' sequel. ``That's because he could be the fun one. He is like the uncle who gets them all riled up, teaches them bad words, gives them candy and doesn't make them take their nap - and then he leaves! And then he wouldn't understand why they would be out of control.''

``I love kids, I work with kids every day; I play a pediatrician, so I'm around them all the time,'' explains Clooney, who at 35 has yet to experience fatherhood himself. ``My feeling has always been that having kids is the ultimate responsibility. I believe it's great to have them, but I also believe that it has to be you going, `Now I have to have children.' It's got to be that important, and for whatever reason, there isn't something drumming in me to go have kids.''

Let's get an objective opinion on that.

``I think he's all talk,'' Pfeiffer says. ``I mean, George has got this new girlfriend and they're pretty hot for each other. So I said, `So, does she want children, George?' He didn't want to talk about it.''

Informed of Pfeiffer's revelation, Clooney responded like a true gentleman.

``You know, I never liked Michelle.''

That comic riposte was much less severe than what happened the last time someone reported on Clooney and his girlfriend, law student and kindergarten teacher Celine Balitran. When the tabloid TV show ``Hard Copy'' ran paparazzi video footage of the couple a few months ago, Clooney fired off an angry letter to ``Copy's'' sister Paramount TV production, ``Entertainment Tonight,'' stating that he would no longer cooperate with either show.

The broadside quickly became public and made Clooney a hero to tabloid-stalked celebrities everywhere.

``Good fun, huh?'' Clooney shrugs. ``It didn't really start off to be a movement of mine, it just kind of grew. All it's really about is trying to make people more responsible for what they say. I don't ever want the right to censor or tell someone that they can't do something. I'm just not going to help one part of a company make money, so that that same company can buy footage of me that's been taken under the worst circumstances.''

Pfeiffer fully supports Clooney's position, although she seems a bit wistful about not being in a similar position herself.

``I think it's great that somebody's finally taken a stand,'' she says. ``It'll be interesting to see where it ends up. But they don't follow me around. They really kind of leave you alone once you've settled in with someone and gotten boring.''

While Pfeiffer could give Clooney little guidance on his anti-tabloid crusade, she did have one choice piece of advice for getting through a big, boisterous ``Batman'' movie production.

``I said, `Make sure they give you a trapdoor so you can go to the bathroom while you're wearing the costume,' '' the former Catwoman reveals. ``If you don't ask for it, they don't give it to you. In my case, it was a week before shooting, the thing was designed, and nobody had thought about it. I said, `Guys, we've got to fix this.' ''

Clooney appreciated the advice, but that's the least of the problems he's experiencing with the 50-pound, hard-rubber Batsuit now.

``I can only keep it on for 15 minutes or so before I'm a pile of sweat,'' Clooney admits. Otherwise, it's a blast working with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Uma Thurman (who play the villains Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy), Chris O'Donnell and Alicia Silverstone (as the sidekicks Robin and Batgirl) and director Joel Schumacher (``Batman Forever,'' ``A Time to Kill''), who likes to run his sets like very expensive parties.

If only Clooney weren't also shooting ``ER'' episodes simultaneously, he'd be having the time of his life.

``We've tried to get some of the moodiness out of the character,'' he says of his take on the Caped Crusader. ``The truth is, in many ways, I get to be Batman in real life: live in a nice house, drive nice cars - I even have a nice garage and butler!

``As difficult as my life could be right now - I'm in no way complaining, but I work seven days a week, very long, long days and I'm pretty whipped - no one wants to hear me complain, you know? I agree with that, and the same thing's got to be with Batman.''

Moodiness runs amok in Pfeiffer's next film, ``A Thousand Acres,'' a contemporary, feminist reinterpretation of Shakespeare's ``King Lear,'' based on Jane Smiley's 1991 best seller and Pulitzer Prize winner, which is set in the rural Midwest. Apparently, the most upbeat thing about making it for Orange County native Pfeiffer (besides co-starring with Jessica Lange) was staying on an Illinois farm.

``The kids loved it,'' she recalls. ``I've always stayed in hotels, and I never want to stay in a hotel again. It was a great experience - and I didn't want to go, believe me. We were staying on a hog farm, but they took the hogs off.''

Of course, Clooney would say that she missed the best part.

``I got him from a pet wrangler when I did the first season of `Roseanne,' '' he says of Max, the 160-pound, um, miniature pig who, along with a changing roster of longtime buddies, shares Clooney's Hollywood Hills home. ``I've had him for nine years now, and he's very clean, much cleaner than a dog. Pigs don't sweat and they don't stink unless you leave them around places they can stink up.''

Obviously, Clooney and Pfeiffer lead very different lives. They even have different views of their most apparent common trait.

``It's very flattering and it's embarrassing,'' Clooney says of being considered one of the most gorgeous guys in the world. ``It isn't an insult, it's a very nice thing to say. But the connotation, sometimes, when they call you a hunk is that you're not very bright or a very good actor. Those are things that I will have to face my whole life and - who knows? - they could be right. The secret to this is knowing your limitations.''

For Pfeiffer these days, it's just a matter of spending more time in front of mirrors. ``I think I'm well-preserved,'' she allows, understatedly. ``I'm holding up OK. Of course, if my son doesn't start sleeping soon ...''

But in perhaps the only example of life following art to come off of their ``One Fine Day'' collaboration, Clooney learned there was more to Michelle Pfeiffer than what meets the eye.

``Forget that Michelle is beautiful - if you can - and forget that she's so smart,'' he says. ``She is one of the greatest actors that you'll ever work with. She's great at physical comedy, she's great in this movie and was great to work with.

``And she's really a great girl; nice and fun to be around,'' adds Clooney who, despite something of a show-biz pedigree - his aunt is singer Rosemary Clooney and his father, Nick, is a veteran television personality - was raised in the less-than-glamorous environments of Kentucky and southern Ohio. ``Her husband plays hockey; he's a real normal guy. In the eye of this hurricane where the two of them live, there is this kind of strange, normal life that they live. And it is so attractive.''

``Isn't he sweet?'' Pfeiffer gushes. ``You know, George is the kind of leading man I love to work with. He just is what he is - he's not sinister in any way. He is mischievous, likes to stir up a little trouble. But he's very professional, very charming and very smart, brings energy to the set ...''

Um, Michelle, remember, you were making a movie. Just acting.

``Well, I'm so in love with my husband, there's just not any room there for anything like that,'' she says. ``But - BUT - George is George and, like I said, he's very charming. It's nice, if you're going to act like you're in love with somebody, if they make it easy for you.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer play a comically contentious couple in ``One Fine Day.''

(2--cover--color) He said, she said

George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer can't seem to agree on anything, except having fun while making `One Fine Day.'