ALL THE RAGE JOAN ALLEN FOUND CATHARSIS IN HER WORK ON THE TRENCHANT AND TIMELY 'YES'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Working on a steamy, cross-cultural love story in which all her lines were delivered in poetic verse, Joan Allen got mad. In a healthy, therapeutic way, that is.

Call it the upside of anger management, Hollywood style.

``I've always kind of felt, as an actor, I've had a problem playing scenes where I had to get really angry,'' says Allen, the star of the recently released ``Yes'' and - ironically - Mike Binder's comedy ``The Upside of Anger'' earlier this year. ``We were experimenting with the argument scene in 'Yes,' I was feeling false and it wasn't ringing true to me; I was frustrated.

``I was playing back in my mind about anger, about acting anger in my own life, and how difficult it is for me to deal with and express,'' she continues. ``So it kind of started spreading out. Everything is kind of connected in a way.''

In ``Yes,'' writer-director Sally Potter (``Orlando'' ``The Tango Lesson'') delves into the hearts and politics of a married Irish-American scientist (played by Allen) and her lover, a Lebanese surgeon (Simon Abkarian) who works in America as a cook. Religious and cultural differences nearly drive the characters of She and He (they are never named) apart, but not before encounters of passionate intimacy, remorse and - occasionally - real anger.

When Allen could display it, that is. Coming to the rescue was Potter, who halted a key argument scene and asked the 49-year-old, three-time Oscar-nominated Allen what was really going on.

Allen purged a bit. The ``fear of anger'' monster was named, and the shooting was able to continue.

``All this stuff started coming out, and I know that can sort of sound hippie and repulsive in a way,'' says Allen. ``But Sally doesn't indulge in stuff like that. She just kind of gives you permission to break through. After just sort of naming it and talking about it, it took the onus off of it.''

Which was probably a good thing since, after ``Yes,'' Allen filmed the dark comedy ``The Upside of Anger,'' which required her to play a majorly ticked-off mother of four who goes into an alcohol-soaked funk when her husband abandons her.

``But in that movie,'' says Allen, ``I was more concerned about the drinking and the comedic elements. That was kind of my main focus, making sure that was believable.''

Newly arrived from New York and off the festival/publicity circuit for ``Yes,'' Allen - a willowy 5 feet 10 - is graceful and gracious, careful about what information she gives away and what she guards. Apart from the anger business, the actress says that working on ``Yes'' helped her ``maybe come into my own more as a person.''

``That's kind of vague and strange,'' she says, ``but I think it was having more confidence in myself, more confidence in other aspects of my personality that I hadn't really let surface, being able to just sort of express those qualities.''

``Yes'' was a film that Potter began developing the day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Allen freely discusses her recollection of that day. She was in New York City. After dropping off her then-8-year-old daughter for her first day at school, Allen proceeded to her therapist's office, where she heard the news and watched some of the early TV coverage in a downstairs lobby.

``The eeriest thing I remember was helicopters that just hung in the air,'' she says. ``I took a bus up Broadway to go home. I saw this helicopter just sitting kind of right above my head. I went home, and I kept my daughter in school.''

The topic of 9-11 didn't come up much in preshoot conversation. But ``Yes'' was shot just as America was going to war with Iraq.

``My sister said, 'How can you be flying to London to make a movie? You have a daughter. You have a responsibility to your daughter,' '' recalls Allen. ``I said, 'I think I'll be fine in London, and I have to make this movie.' ''

Potter shared that sentiment. Abkarian, who had done He in a short version of the film, was already cast, and chemistry between the male and female leads would be essential. Even if it wasn't, Potter says it would have been a difficult decision not to cast Joan Allen.

``When I met her and she started to read, I realized that I had really found the one,'' Potter writes in her press notes. ``There was something about her, not just her technical skills, not just her blondness, her blue-eyedness, which brings with it so much information, so much myth, so much iconography, but somebody who wanted to work from the inside out and who was prepared to make herself soul-naked for the film.''

If the cineplexes have been positively ablaze with Joan Allen recently, that's partly a function of timing. She filmed the art-house-bound ``Off the Map'' with Sam Elliott for director Campbell Scott. Then ``Yes'' and ``Upside,'' both of which filmed in London. She had supporting roles in two 2004 summer hits, ``The Bourne Supremacy'' and ``The Notebook.''

In 2000, she was nominated for an Oscar in ``The Contender'' for her role as a vice presidential nominee under attack for alleged past sexual indiscretions. As Binder would later do with ``The Upside of Anger,'' ``The Contender's'' director, Rod Lurie, wrote the role of Sen. Laine Hanson specifically for Allen.

``I'm usually looking for something that's a little bit different,'' says Allen, who has also earned Oscar nominations for playing first lady Pat Nixon in ``Nixon'' and Elizabeth Proctor in ``The Crucible.'' ``With 'Off the Map' it was an earthy character, someone who lived in the desert and had a garden and goes to the dump and can fix cars ... that whole sort of quality was attractive to me. With 'Yes,' I felt like I'd never really done a full-blown love story.''

Randall Arney, artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse and a company member at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, remembers being a freshman theater student with Allen at Eastern Illinois University in 1975. The Joan Allen that Arney knew - and acted with - was indeed prone to self-deprecating remarks and doubts about her abilities.

``She always seemed so shy off stage, but given a role that had a certain power, Joan showed and still shows that fierceness and ferocity,'' says Arney. ``She's always been an amazing chameleon - without you noticing, she's able to change her center.''

Arney says he has tried to entice Allen back to the stage, but the actress - who followed her Tony award-winning turn in Lanford Wilson's ``Burn This'' with a lengthy run in Wendy Wasserstein's ``The Heidi Chronicles'' - maintains she has no immediate plans to tread the boards again.

``I would never say never,'' she says. ``I think I got burned out. I did two incredibly long runs of pretty unhappy characters, and I found it difficult to stay in that place.

``I used to love the theater, from, like, high school on, and the more tragic the character, the more messed up and upset, the better. ... I don't know if I want to go there that much, every night, eight times a week.''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

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Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer