`PRIMARY' COMPARISONS.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Daily News Film Writer

``Primary Colors'' - the movie, the book and the story behind both - blends fact and fiction so seamlessly that it's difficult to know where fantasy ends and reality begins.

``I've never had a movie people were so curious about,'' a weary Mike Nichols said recently. ``Maureen Dowd wrote a whole column in The New York Times, where she already had an opinion about the movie, and she hadn't even seen it. And that's typically been the case. Maybe 98 percent of what has been reported about this movie has been untrue. But it gets picked up and picked up again, and by the third time it's been picked up, it's true.''

Of course, Nichols isn't naive. He knew when he signed on as director for ``Primary Colors'' that this movie would be scrutinized by reporters who cover Capitol Hill and the Hollywood studios. After all, the 1996 ``anonymous'' novel about a womanizing governor running for president had its own full set of baggage, after author Joe Klein denied ownership and then was outed by the Washington Post.

This ended Washington's favorite parlor game - who wrote the book? - but politicos still gossiped about the novel's candid conversations, situations and characterizations and wondered, Did Hillary/Susan Stanton really say that. Did Bill/Jack Stanton really DO that?.

After a fierce bidding war, Klein's literary agent sold the book's film rights to Nichols for $1.5 million. Nichols knew he still had a hot potato, but he figured some of the heat would have evaporated by the time he made the film and it opened in theaters.

But that was before Monica Lewinski went to the White House to get her ``presidential kneepads.'' Suddenly, Nichols' movie faced another series of questions. Had reality left ``Primary Colors'' in the dust? How could Universal Pictures market a movie about a presidential candidate, played by John Travolta, who looks like Clinton, talks like Clinton and walks like Clinton and still give it some sense of mystery? Would audiences even want to see a political movie (a risky box-office genre) after weeks and weeks of real-life headlines?

``I would hang myself,'' one studio executive told The New York Times when asked what he would do if he worked for Universal.

Yet Nichols doesn't have his head in a noose. Granted, he has a splitting headache and is dead tired from answering rumors about scenes he supposedly deleted (or added) to ``Primary Colors'' to appease either the White House or studio executives. (Or maybe Nichols' newswoman wife, Diane Sawyer, who had her own critique.)

``It's all rather unnerving,'' Nichols says, ``having to answer to things that I never did.''

To help alleviate some of the stress, we thought we would answer a few of the more pressing issues revolving around ``Primary Colors,'' using great care to avoid hearsay and innuendo, except when it makes the story a little more interesting.

Tom Hanks dropped out of the movie because he's a Friend of Bill.

After Nichols bought the film rights, he closed a deal with Universal that paid him a reported $8.5 million to produce and direct the movie. Universal was excited about the project. The studio liked the book, liked Nichols and particularly liked the fact that Tom Hanks wanted to play the lead character.

However, after thinking about it, Hanks got cold feet and dropped out. Rumors circulated that the actor, who is friendly with Clinton, did not want to offend the president.

``Tom wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't because of that,'' Nichols says. ``He was nervous about the promiscuity. It's not his nature at all. And there were some scheduling concerns as well with another movie, `Saving Private Ryan.' ''

Hanks' exit gave Travolta an opportunity to play a part that, five years earlier, his nephew had pegged him for.

``We were sitting around one day, goofing off and he said, `Uncle Johnny, you really remind me of President Clinton,' '' Travolta remembers. ``And I thought about it and said, ``Hmmm ... if I ever play a president, I would definitely use him as a model.''

Five years later, he did.

Nichols softened the Jack Stanton character because he's a Friend of Bill.

This has been widely reported, mostly by people who haven't seen the movie. In the novel, Stanton is a crafty campaigner, dodging bimbo eruptions and reports of a draft-dodging past. (Sound familiar?) But he's also fiercely, voraciously intelligent - and a man who cares about people and their problems.

The film, hardly a valentine to Clinton, maintains that balance. One of the central plot points involves allegations that Stanton has impregnated a minor and then attempted to cover it up.

Says Nichols: ``Stanton has a genuine passion for people and a need to express that passion. Of course, some other passions come along with it.''

Which brings to mind the inevitable comparison with Clinton.

``Well, it might be useful for us to consider if that's a pretty good deal perhaps,'' Nichols says. ``America has had a long line of gifted leaders - Kennedy, Roosevelt among them - who have wonderful abilities with people but also the unfortunate flaw of not being able to keep their pants zipped.

``Maybe we should think about leaving these people alone and let them do their jobs.''

Of course, Nichols could be speaking as much for himself here as he is for the leader of the free world.

Then again, maybe he isn't talking about Clinton at all because ...

Jack Stanton isn't Bill Clinton. Really.

This is the company line, uttered by everyone from Nichols, Travolta and Emma Thompson (who plays Stanton's wife) right on down to real-life Friend of Bill, Arkansas native Billy Bob Thornton (portraying a James Carvillesque political spin doctor).

Certainly ``Primary Colors'' isn't an A&E Clinton ``Biography,'' and it doesn't match the veracity of the Clinton campaign documentary, ``The War Room.''

But if Nichols didn't want the comparisons, why does Travolta fashion a virtual imitation of Clinton - the vocal register, the facial expressions, the flecked hair, the paunch? Why, out of all the accents the British Thompson could have adopted, did she choose a Midwestern tone, specifically Chicago, making her sound just like Hillary?

In fact, why is it that the rest of the cast could virtually pass for their real-life Clinton counterparts? Billy Bob looks live Carville, Kathy Bates doubles for ``dust buster'' Betsey Wright, and Maura Tierney resembles adviser Mandy Grunwald.

Nichols demurs.

``Maybe there are similarities,'' he says. ``Maybe we asked for all of this. But it is a fiction. We didn't copy, we created.''

Bring up the topic with Thompson and she becomes a little touchy.!``I'm not playing Hillary,'' she says. ``I'm not being coy about this, but I wouldn't have touched this movie with a barge pole if it was some exploitative, trashy tome about the Clintons. It's a movie that's about us, I'm afraid. And that's what I find so affecting about it. It's about our own sense of confusion here and now at the end of the 20th century.''

On this point, naturally, Nichols agrees.

``We had a preview, and I got a response card that is my favorite response card I've ever seen,'' Nichols says. ``It read: HILARIOUS. BRILLIANTLY OBSERVED. REMINDS ME OF THE CLINTONS.

``People who see the movie get it,'' Nichols continues. ``They are watching a story. And it's a story that asks a lot of questions about honor and morality and selling out and the compromises leaders must make and the compromises we, the people who are electing them, must make.

``And in the end, isn't that a little more interesting than what the president did with a White House intern?''

That's a question movie audiences, the box-office electorate, soon will decide.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) REAL EVENTS PLAYED A `PRIMARY' ROLE IN TRAVOLTA'S NEW FILM

CHANGING `COLORS'

(2) In ``Primary Colors,'' John Travolta and Emma Thompson play Jack and Susan Stanton. Director Mike Nichols: ``Maybe 98 percent of what has been reported about this movie has been untrue. But it gets picked up and picked up again, and by the third time it's been picked up, it's true.''

(3) `I've never had a movie people were so curious about,' says director Mike Nichols, right, of the film based on the `anonymous' novel about a presidential candidate who looks, talks and walks like Clinton