CHARACTER STUDY `STAGE BEAUTY' STARS PONDER THEIR PLACE IN THE ACTING PROCESS.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Edward ``Ned'' Kynaston was a noted 17th-century actor who, at least according to the new movie ``Stage Beauty,'' played women so well onstage that he had a hard time grappling with his own sexual identity. In short, he was better pretending to be a woman than he was living as a man.

This is especially true after Charles II takes the throne, reverses a ban and allows women back on stage, turning Kynaston into a forerunner of the silent movie stars who were cast aside once talkies entered the picture.

``Stage Beauty'' is very much an actors' movie, nailing how performers (some of them, at least) erase and enhance themselves by getting lost in their characters. Gifted chameleon Billy Crudup plays Kynaston; Claire Danes portrays his dresser, love interest and initial beneficiary of the king's ruling. Rupert Everett plays Charles, stealing every scene in which he appears.

The three actors couldn't be more different. Intense and intelligent, Crudup can delineate the process of acting as well as anybody. Danes, 25, one of our finest young actresses, knows well the many ways that art and life can overlap. (She and Crudup became an item while making the movie.) And Everett espouses a devil-may-care attitude about the whole thing, an approach that masks a solid commitment to his craft.

We asked each of them to comment on some of the film's themes as they relate to acting.

Q: Ned doesn't know who he is because he's lost himself in the persona he projects on stage. Have you ever lost yourself to a role?

CRUDUP: When I did ``Waking the Dead'' (the 2000 film in which Crudup played a congressional candidate questioning his sanity after seeing his long-deceased girlfriend), it was sort of about this nervous breakdown. And the process of doing that part was more insidious than I gave it credit for. It took me a long time to recover and become more stable again. I was quite sensitive for a while, quicker to anger, quicker to sadness.

Usually, though, it's easier to turn it off. Like with ``Almost Famous,'' all I had to do was shave the mustache. Goodbye rock god.

DANES: I'm vulnerable to that confusion myself sometimes. I always admire those actors who can easily delineate their identity from the one they have to assume. I'm not capable that way. It doesn't drive me mad, you know. I know I'm Claire, but in this process of empathizing with this person I'm supposed to be rendering, sometimes I over-identify.

Like when I played Juliet (in Baz Luhrmann's ``Romeo + Juliet'') ... I know this sounds somewhat pretentious and romantic to talk about it this way, but the parallels were quite pronounced. She was coming of age. I was coming of age. She was undergoing her sexual awakening, as was I. It was a little weird to be in the middle of that.

EVERETT: I've never found myself to start with, so how could I lose myself? That's not my problem. I'm just not that kind of actor. Sometimes I think I'm too superficial. But I'm not, actually. I've never understood those people who say they can't shuffle off the part afterward. I'm on to my first day of holiday, forgetting the whole thing even happened. I find it very difficult to hold on to anything, really. Including money.

Q: Is it possible to be a great actor without being a mass of contradictions?

CRUDUP: Probably not. One of the mandates of being a great actor is to transform yourself from role to role so an audience never really has a stake in you personally. They can immediately imagine a reality that you suggest them. And one way to go about that is to never define yourself. And a very good way to not define yourself is to be full of contradictions.

So I think you would want to, at the very least, project a kind of complexity that facilitates the notion of contradictions in order to keep people from recognizing a single identity. I don't know you need to possess that internally. I am full of contradictions because I am a human being. And maybe that helps make a great actor, someone who's empathetic to that.

DANES: (Agonizing) Ooooh, I don't know. (Feigning an empty-headed monotone) My favorite color is blue. I like pizza very much. (Laughs) You know, our material is our personal experience, and our palette consists of our feelings. So we have to remain vulnerable, malleable and present - and yeah, that can be a little stressful and lead to some contradictions.

EVERETT: It's difficult to say what makes a great actor now. When I started off, I was in school in 1976, '77. There were all these big biographies of Montgomery Clift out, and all anyone thought of was the James Dean, Marlon Brando suffering artist, people who burn their lives so they can glow like embers on screen. Now it's more of a corporate business. Acting is reality shows and game shows. And that doesn't require much in the way of contradictions.

Q: Ned's career is his identity. When he loses it, he loses himself. What would happen to you if you couldn't act?

CRUDUP: I'm sure I would suffer. I think that I'm somewhat more in touch with myself than Ned, so I don't think I'd have the space to fall that he did. But it's such an important part of me feeling vital in the world that I would have to search pretty hard for something that brought me as much ... it's not just joy ... I guess vitality is the right word. It makes me feel like I have something important to offer.

DANES: It would be devastating. I didn't act for three years, though. I went to college for two. I'd been acting since I was 12, and I wasn't sure if I was acting out of habit or out of true passion. And I finally realized it was the latter.

But I wanted to give myself the chance to seriously consider other stuff. And while I'm capable of doing other things, I'm not as good at them. (Laughs) For a while I thought I might be a therapist. I discovered, though, that I'm better at being on the couch than doing the actual thing.

EVERETT: Would I be able to sue someone in this scenario? I wouldn't mind getting out on a big $40 million court case. It's not the acting, it's the glory. Life isn't worth living without the attention. Of course, it's too easy to say that. I do like celebrity. I don't think ``liking'' is a good word for acting. It's always very stressful, I find.

Of course, actors are great complainers. Like in this movie, I had to act with spaniels. I had to stick bits of liver down my shoe and up my bum to get the dogs to follow me. And they don't, so you have to do the scenes again and again - in high heels. Death to the back. How can you ``like'' something like that?

Q: True or false: To become another person, you don't really have to know yourself.

CRUDUP: I'd argue that, in the long run, you can't do that. Any career of substance and longevity is going to come from someone being rooted enough in their own technique. And that takes a certain introspection and clarity of vision that you only get from knowing yourself a little bit.

DANES: I think that's true. And then it's really precarious. You have nothing to return to - and then you can become really disoriented. You can do a character for a certain time, but it's fleeting. And when they abandon you, you're left again with nothing. It's risky. Better to know yourself - and have a hobby.

EVERETT: I think hardly anyone knows themselves to begin with. So acting is really the perfect profession.

Glenn Whipp, (818) > 713-3672

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) BILLY CRUDUP in ``STAGE BEAUTY'' (2) Billy Crudup and Claire Danes in ``Stage Beauty.''

(3) Rupert Everett plays Charles II, who allows women to act alongside men, in ``Stage Beauty.''