'APHRODITE'S' SORVINO NOT SO MIGHTY AFTER MONROE ROLE.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

While Mira Sorvino has been collecting critics' awards - including the Golden Globe - for "Mighty Aphrodite," the actress has been finding her way out of the gloom she says overtook her while she was playing Marilyn Monroe in HBO's upcoming "Norma Jean and Marilyn."

Sorvino said portraying the doomed sex symbol in the biography that airs in May "was the hardest acting experience I've ever had.

"It was so depressing at times you couldn't just leave it on the set, you took it home with you," she said. "We wrapped Christmas Eve and the last scene that I did was her expiring in the ambulance. It was kind of an awful way to end the shoot.

"For the next two weeks I was in an abject depression," Sorvino continued, "lying around feeling hopeless and despairing ... not my usual self. I felt there was very little flavor to life and was very worried about what was my purpose on the earth - was there some kind of saving grace or was it all sort of existentialist hell? - which is where Marilyn was when she died ... really confused and desperate."

Sorvino said only now are those feelings "going away. I feel very good about that - but it was weird."

Initial reports had it that Sorvino was out as the femme lead of Keanu Reeves' "Dead Drop" because her reps asked for a low seven-figure salary and negotiations fell apart. But she said it was her own decision to pass.

"I decided it was time for me to take a break," said the actress, who has the big-screen "Beautiful Girls" with Uma Thurman due out Feb. 3, and CBS' version of Neil Simon's "Jake's Women" upcoming. She added that she has "no dearth of options," but for now "I just need a little personal time. So I'm taking a few months off to just kind of decide what I want to do next. ... I'm hoping to follow this up with something a little less intense for my own personal health."

TV traumas: With her frosh "Home Court" series "swimming in the moat" - suffering some of its worst ratings ever - in its new Saturday night time slot, Pamela Reed is doing her best to maintain a positive outlook. Still, the actress is quick to point out it's been a rough road for her series.

"We've had three different lead-in shows - and we were pre-empted so often, we only aired six times last year," Reed said. "A lot of people thought we were off the air." On the other hand, "We've proven we can hold an audience. ... Now if we can be seen for six weeks in a row, who knows? I do know we have a good show here."

Reed's 5-year-old son doesn't watch "Home Court," but he is aware that his mom "tells stories for a living, sometimes on stage, sometimes in front of cameras."

And he knows she's playing a judge. The other day, he picked up a newspaper featuring a photo of the Nuremburg Trials, "and asked, 'Are these the people who see you on Saturday nights?' " Reed's response: "Sometimes it seems like it."

If the face looks familiar: The trend toward celebrity cameos on hot sitcoms is growing, no doubt about it. "Cybill" and "Hudson Street" have both put out casting notices for that kind of wow-look-who-it-is celebrity guest bit in the last week or so.

And we'll be seeing celebrity look-alikes on upcoming segments of "Seinfeld" and "Cybill."

In coming weeks, "Seinfeld" will bring us faux versions of Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo, and "Cybill" is plotting a segment with numerous celeb knockoffs, from Streisand and Madonna, to ... Abraham Lincoln.

Oh, baby: The "ER" casting forces had quite a labor recently - finding six actresses who were seven months pregnant for a forthcoming episode of the med series involving stories of mothers-to-be. They're some demanding roles - an expectant woman fighting cancer, another with a drug problem. Nothing along the lines of "I Love Lucy."

Awooooo: A June start date has been set for "American Werewolf in Paris," with lensing to take place in Paris and Luxembourg. The planned Hollywood Pictures feature is not related to "American Werewolf in London." It's written and will be directed by Anthony Waller and the title werewolf is a she.

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Photo (1) Mira Sorvino "Mighty Aphrodite" (2) Pamela Reed "Home Court"