DEFINITELY HOT BUT PENELOPE CRUZ LOVED THE ACTION ON THE `SAHARA' SET.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

As creative endorsements go, this one probably qualifies as slightly cuckoo. But Penelope Cruz took it and ran with it. Or rather, she galloped.

First-time feature director Breck Eisner needed a love interest to play opposite Dirk Pitt, the franchise treasure hunter/hero of Clive Cussler's novels, brought to life in the film ``Sahara.'' Star and executive producer Matthew McConaughey was already locked in as Pitt, as was Steve Zahn in the role of Dirk's wiseacre sidekick, Al Giordino.

Which left the lady, World Health Organization doctor Eva Rojas. She's a character with brains, beauty, resourcefulness and ... camel compatibility.

``I wanted to do a sendup of Westerns where instead of horses galloping next to a train, we'd have camels, and the characters would jump from the camels to the train,'' recalls Eisner. ``So I thought, 'What female star do I want to see on a camel galloping next to a train covered in dust in the desert?' And I thought, 'Penelope Cruz.' ''

Come again? The Penelope Cruz of ``Belle Epoque,'' ``Captain Corelli's Mandolin'' and a handful of Pedro Almodovar films? The Madrid-reared beauty who, in her more than 30 movies since 1992, had never appeared in a double-popcorn, action-adventure flick?

The very same. And if you get the 30-year-old actress talking about ``Sahara,'' she'll quickly flash back to that scene: from the training it required to the finer points of camel bonding: ``Mine was very sweet. He never threw me off.''

``My 'Sahara' scar,'' says Cruz, proudly displaying a mostly healed small gash in her hand. ``After the jumping where we're hanging on the train, there was a rope between Matthew's and my hand (that cut into me). It's the only thing I got, and I kind of like having it. For memory.

``My family was surprised that I was cast for an action-hero character. My brother was 20, so he was laughing. 'How come they cast you for something like that? These people are never going to believe it.' Then, when he saw it, he loved it. He was very impressed.''

That's right, meet Penelope Cruz: action queen of the Sahara. Well, maybe not. Cruz confesses that, while on location in Morocco, she actually wandered off and got lost in the desert.

``I even like that experience now because nothing bad happened,'' she says. ``We were lucky to find our way back, but they were laughing at me when I came back, saying, 'You were close to a land-mine area.' I guess I was lucky again.''

Owing more than a passing creative debt to ``Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' the film finds Pitt and Giordino hunting through the West African desert in search of - ahem! - a missing Civil War battleship. Dr. Rojas, meanwhile, is tracking the source of a mysterious plague. Could the two mysteries somehow be connected?

``Sahara,'' carrying a reported budget of more than $100 million, was financed under Philip Anschutz's Bristol Bay Entertainment and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film launches the directing career of Eisner (son of former Disney top mouse Michael Eisner), and is also the movie that birthed Cruz's romance with McConaughey following the breakup of her three-year relationship with Tom Cruise.

Of this relationship, McConaughey - who has stated that the romance started after ``Sahara'' wrapped - reports, ``Everything's going great. She's a joy to be around. I like who I am. You see her. What's not to like?''

But Cruz, who divides her time between homes in L.A. and Spain, clams up when the subject of her personal life is raised. The very mention of McConaughey's name in anything other than a work-related context prompts a quick, ``I'm not going to say anything about that.''

``I don't get defensive anymore, but I don't answer,'' explains Cruz. ``Because I really know it's my right to protect that part of my life. And if I don't do it, no one's going to do it for me.''

Very little about Cruz screams ``action star.'' Rail thin and stylishly dressed in Dolce & Gabbana, the actress has a serenity and an ease of manner. Answering questions in heavily accented English, Cruz thinks before she speaks and gives nothing away. It's self-protection as much as guardedness, say acquaintances, who note that the actress has been making movies since she was a teenager in Spain.

Her performing aspirations date back even further. ``I was dancing since I was 4. I was always asking for the role of Carmen, and the teachers were always laughing at me. Then, when I was 13 or 14, I started looking for an agent because I sneaked into a theater and saw 'Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!' I said, 'I'm going to become an actress so that one day I can work with that man.' ''

``That man'' was ``Tie Me Up!'' director Pedro Almodovar, who has directed Cruz in ``Live Flesh'' and ``All About My Mother.'' ``Sometimes dreams come true,'' says Cruz, who will spend the summer in Spain shooting Almodovar's next film. She won't discuss it, except to say it's ``the best thing he's ever written.''

``Pedro is, like, my hero. He knows me very well, and he can use that in a good way. He knows I like putting myself in his hands. It's always a better experience when it's someone you can trust 100 percent.''

It was her role as an unconventional nun in the Oscar-winning ``All About My Mother'' that brought Cruz international attention. She crossed the Atlantic with a pair of Westerns: ``The Hi-Lo Country'' and ``All the Pretty Horses.'' She has played a motion-sick cooking-show host (``Woman on Top''), the hard-living wife of cocaine trafficker Johnny Depp (``Blow'') and the paramour of Tom Cruise in ``Vanilla Sky,'' a remake of the Spanish film ``Open Your Eyes,'' which Cruz made for director Alejandro Amenabar.

``I don't like safe and easy stuff,'' says Cruz. ``I think (Almodovar) knows that about myself and that I can throw myself into a character that is not easy and that has nothing to do with where I am in my personal life.''

You think camels and dusty, sandy chase scenes are rough going? Try tackling something like ``Don't Move,'' the much smaller film Cruz is currently headlining. She plays Italia, a destitute young woman who falls in love with the upper-class doctor (played by director Sergio Castellitto) who rapes her. The role has won Cruz a Donatello award (Italy's equivalent of an Oscar) for best actress.

More important, the role of Italia was something of a catharsis for Cruz, who used ``Don't Move'' as a means of dealing with her own ``monsters.''

``Nothing goes well for her. She gets so hit by life that she can never recover,'' Cruz says of Italia, ``and, for me, I felt more responsibility for playing her than for playing a queen. We can see her out there (in the world), and I wanted to give her a dignity.

``With the (roles) that are emotionally very charged, you get to explore a lot of human behavior and learn a lot of things. It's fascinating. With acting, there's always more to learn. I could be an old woman working in a theater in Spain and knowing I'm learning something new.''

Like dodging land mines or riding camels.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) SAND BLAST

Penelope Cruz and the boys had a rollicking time making `Sahara'

(2) no caption (Penelope Cruz)

(3) Matthew McConaughey, left; Penelope Cruz; Steve Zahn