After the Dollhouse: lesbian actress Heather Matarazzo leaves Dawn Wiener way behind this summer by taking on slasher movies and dingbat sitcom characters. We like!

Earlier this year Welcome to the Dollhouse actress Heather Matarazzo came back into our lives as lesbian journalist Stacey Merkin on The L Word. Next fall she'll appear in the six-episode Logo series Exes and Ohs, about a gaggle of lesbian friends in Seattle.

In Exes and Ohs, Matarazzo plays a singer-song writer wannabe named Crutch, who she describes as "young emotionally, and just really kind of trying to find her way in the world." And trying to find her way musically as well: Matarazzo compares Crutch to Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) on Friends, whose folk songs included "Smelly Cat," "Fetus Song," and "Bisexuals."

But the 24-year old thespian isn't about to be locked into the gay ghetto. This summer Matarazzo will also be seen on the big screen in a creepy tale of gore and dismemberment, Hostel: Part II. "It's about these three young women students backpacking through Europe who make this ill-fated decision, and as a result they suffer the consequences," says Matarazzo. "My character is, like, 'Oh, look at the butterflies, everything is so hunky-dory and amazing,' but when she feels threatened or feels uncomfortable you see the other side of her."

Uh-oh--how scary is this "other side"? "l guess you'll have to wait and see," she says with a little too much glee.

Matarazzo's come a long way from her brilliant portrayal of downtrodden Dawn "Wiener Dog" Wiener in Welcome to the Dollhouse. Since then she's done a variety of projects--episodes of Roseanne, the films The Princess Diaries and Saved!--but admits that she still fights being typecast as "the awkward, quirky, weird girl." As for being an out actress in Hollywood, the currently "happily single" Matarazzo doesn't feel limited. "Honestly," she says, "at the end of the day, I don't think people care who I'm sleeping with when I'm not working."