CHUTZPAH HALLE: CHANGES ON AND OFF THE SCREEN : MIXING ROLES AS REVLON MODEL, RAPPER AND GLITZY GEORGIA GIRL.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

Gold teeth. Nine-inch nails. Blond hair teased and fanned out with so much product it could poke your eyes out.

Halle Berry has a new look, all right. And Revlon had nothing to do with it.

In her latest movie ``B.A.P.S.'' (short for Black American Princesses), Berry and newcomer Natalie Desselle play two flashy friends from Decatur, Ga., out to conquer Hollywood with their homegirl chutzpah and in-you-eyes fashion sense.

Her character Nisi represents a startling change of pace for Berry. Generally considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, the 30-year-old actress and recently minted Revlon spokesmodel has always had an air of almost untouchable perfection about her. Even when she's chosen to play other than a pretty face, such as her harrowing portrayal of a drug-addicted young mother in the 1995 film ``Losing Isaiah,'' it's been in the prescribed, hyper-dramatic kind of thing actresses who want to be taken seriously are expected to do.

There's nothing serious about ``B.A.P.S.' '' outrageous Nisi. But after the most traumatic year of her life, Berry was ready for a few carefree image changes to balance out the awful personal ones.

``I didn't know it would quite be like this, but I wanted to do a comedy of some kind,'' Berry, her lethal blond wigs mercifully packed away somewhere, said during a recent interview. ``So I thought, if I'm gonna do it, why not do a big, broad one, really jump in.''

``Halle is really funny,'' observed her longtime friend and ``B.A.P.S.'' director, Robert Townsend. ``She dived into it, and we really had a ball. Every time she would act out a scene, she would add something to it. The only problem we had was that one gold tooth came up missing one time; I think she swallowed it.

``For an actor, it's all about taking chances,'' continued Townsend (``Hollywood Shuffle,'' TV's ``The Parent 'Hood''), ``and she takes a big chance with this.''

`These women do exist'

Berry took more than just an image-altering risk when she signed on for ``B.A.P.S.'' With its broad caricatures of certain aspects of African-American culture, the film ran the risk of getting labeled a minstrel show, as has happened to such television sitcoms as ``The Martin Lawrence Show,'' which critics contend present their principals in a cartoonish light.

``In the beginning, I thought the characters were extreme,'' Berry admitted. ``But then I went to a few places and discovered that this really wasn't all that extreme. These women do exist. And I think we were always mindful of not making fun of these women, but showing you how much fun they are. We wanted to show you how much they enjoy life and how free they are about who they are and their sense of style.

``It was a compliment to me to be allowed to portray one of these women,'' Berry added. ``Because we're sort of introducing them to people who didn't even know they're out there.''

Though she'd never be caught in public looking like Nisi, Berry said she could relate to the role on some fundamental levels.

``I come from humble, humble beginnings,'' she said. ``I was born in a small town near Cleveland, Ohio; single-parent home, one mother and two latchkey kids. We went without a whole lot of things; we had the bare essentials, but for the most part we struggled.

``So I can understand having big dreams and little money, and no way of knowing how you're gonna make 'em come true. Most definitely.''

Berry's dreams began coming true when she won the Miss Teen Ohio and Miss Ohio beauty pageants in the mid-'80s, then came in first runner-up for the 1986 Miss USA competition.

Hollywood took notice and began offering her roles on such TV series as ``Knots Landing'' and ``Living Dolls.'' She made her first feature films - ``Strictly Business,'' ``The Last Boy Scout'' and Spike Lee's ``Jungle Fever'' - in 1991, and went on to appear in, among others, ``Boomerang,'' ``The Flintstones'' and ``Executive Decision,'' the last of which recently earned Berry a Blockbuster Movie Award. She also won a NAACP Image Award for her starring role in the TV miniseries ``Alex Haley's Queen.''

An unexpected turn

Pretty dreamy, but last year a nightmare intruded. More or less unexpectedly, Berry's husband of three years, baseball star David Justice (who was traded from the Atlanta Braves to the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday), asked her for a divorce - and, with some audacity, for alimony.

Understandably devastated, Berry has only recently found the strength to discuss the sudden breakup. But now she feels it's her duty to share her feelings - which included contemplating suicide - with others.

That and, as she's discovered, it can feel good to talk it out.

``I'm not telling this for it to be sad,'' she noted. ``It's really a good thing to share because I know women - people - go through these kinds of situations. It's an attempt to say, `Hey, I'm just like everybody else, we're all in this thing called life together.' It's kind of a cleansing, too - saying I'm going on with my life.''

A prospect Berry naturally feels ambivalent about.

``I'm looking forward to starting over because I have to start over,'' she said. ``But it's also scary and it's also sad. It's a great love lost, I'm gonna miss his presence and all that. His friends became my friends, and his family became my family; those are the things that you miss when a marriage breaks up.''

Though the final papers have yet to be signed, Berry has recently been spotted out with some eligible men, most frequently ``The Young and the Restless'' soap opera star Shemar Moore. All platonic, she says. And with Berry's new perspective on things, it's likely to stay that way for a while.

``There are some good guy friends I can call for dates who understand where I'm at in my life and are not pressuring me to have relationships,'' she revealed. ``I've got some really good friendships with men that I've never really had before.

``I've learned so much through marriage - and I've learned that, the next time around, I'm going to take the time to find out, `Do I really like you?' Not `Do I love you and am I in love and do I lust after you,' but `Do I like who you are, and can I laugh with you and play with you?' I think I might take the time to figure that out.''

Rapping with Beatty

Berry's resolve wasn't really put to the test on the set of her most recently completed film, ``Bullworth'' - written and directed by co-star Warren Beatty.

``Whew! No, he didn't hit on me,'' laughed Berry, who might be the first of the now-married Beatty's leading ladies who can make that statement. In the film, Beatty plays a senator on the verge of a nervous breakdown who is helped out by Berry's rap singer character.

That's right, Halle Berry plays a rap singer. Well, she wants to try new things ...

``I'm just a glutton for punishment,'' she joked. ``I just love doing different things, and that's the challenge of it. This was a lot of fun for me, another different character. I've got dreadlocks, up there rappin' like you wouldn't think I would be doing. And I found I had a little aptitude for it, though I couldn't make a living at it and better not quit my day job.''

Next up, Berry hopes to produce and star in an HBO movie about Dorothy Dandridge, another Cleveland beauty who made it big in Hollywood (in 1954, the ``Carmen Jones'' star was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar) before bad luck and drugs cut her life short.

The Dandridge connection reminds Berry why it's so important for others - and for her - to be able to see beyond her cover-girl looks.

``When people tell you your whole life that you're really good-looking, you tend to find yourself really isolated,'' she confessed. ``People don't want to look past the shell and realize there's a real person in there that is dying to get out.

``People who are labeled beautiful spend their lives proving `I'm more than just this,' but so many times others aren't interested. It can become a very lonely and shallow existence if you don't fight very hard to let the depth out. I think that's why I do the `B.A.P.S.' and the `Losing Isaiahs,' things where I can be more than just a Revlon face that doesn't speak, that has no name.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) WHAT'S UP WITH HALLE BERRY

With her marriage over, she has a new outlook and a new film

(2) ``I didn't know it would quite be like this, but I wanted to do a comedy of some kind. So I thought, if I'm gonna do it, why not do a big, broad one, really jump in,'' says Halle Berry of her role in ``B.A.P.S.''

Gus Ruelas/Daily News

(3) Natalie Desselle, left, and Berry in their ``B.A.P.S.'' fashions.