FROM `MAGUIRE' GIRL TO HASIDIC WIFE; ZELLWEGER'S ROLE IN `A PRICE ABOVE RUBIES' LETS HER EXPAND REMARKABLE DRAMATIC RANGE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

Renee Zellweger does not behave like she's supposed to.

Coming off one of the most impressive and coveted jobs in recent movie history - as Tom Cruise's complex, comic love interest in the critical and commercial blockbuster ``Jerry Maguire'' - the envied actress no doubt had her pick of plum Hollywood projects.

Those in the know had been equally impressed, if not more so, by her dramatic work in the acclaimed independent film ``The Whole Wide World,'' a period piece set in Zellweger's native Texas that required every emotion under the Southern sun. That, you'd have to reckon, opened doors to the most exciting and challenging indie efforts as well.

But rather than going for the high-profile payoff or most prestigious art film choice, Zellweger went, first, for a small part in the obscure psychological thriller ``Deceiver,'' and then the meaty but problematic lead in ``A Price Above Rubies.''

``Well, I don't know if I was offered everything in town,'' the honey-voiced Zellweger says with a lyrical laugh. ``It's just that the reasons why I do a project remain the same to me, and what appeals to me hasn't changed. It's about the richness of the characters and what the story has to tell.''

Zellweger admits, though, that `Rubies' '' Sonia Horowitz was a dauntingly left field choice, even for her. A young, Brooklyn Hasidic woman chafing from the Orthodox Jewish sect's religion-centered lifestyle and strict gender roles, Sonia's behavior grows increasingly, well, unorthodox as she pursues elusive personal satisfaction.

Stretching her limits

``I have no idea what the boundaries of what I can do are - they keep changing all the time,'' she confesses. ``But I was just really curious why Boaz (Yakin, `Rubies' ' writer-director) thought I could do this. Because I didn't think I could do this; I mean, c'mon, I couldn't be further from, y'know?''

Got that right. The small, southeast Texas town of Katy, where Zellweger grew up, may be insular in its way, but hardly in the same way that an urban, ethnic-religious community is. Besides, Zellweger's world was wider than her neighbors' anyway. With a mother from Norway and a Swiss-born father from Australia, Renee was raised with both cosmopolitan sophistication and a Texan's naturally expansive view of the world.

None of which involved familiarity with the Torah or, particularly, the Talmud.

``Boaz gave me tons of books to read, starting with the Old Testament,'' she explains. ``I saw a lot of videos that the Hasidim made about how to keep your house in a rebbe way and all this stuff. Then we saw documentaries about Chabad in America and how they came over from Eastern Europe to New York.

``Then, of course, there was going to a bris, going to a mikvah and going into the community, walking around and checking out the stores, their restaurants and their way of life.''

Controversial role

Despite steeping herself in Hasidic culture - and, in the process, developing affection and respect for it - Zellweger's portrayal of Sonia has nonetheless upset many members of the close-knit community. The character does, after all, question and reject basic Orthodox beliefs, trade stay-at-home domestic duties for a career in the jewelry business and carry on a loveless affair with the nasty Sender (Christopher Eccleston), the brother of her devout scholar husband Mendel (Glenn Fitzgerald).

``I haven't really been confronted with it, except for a day on the set when they were marching against the film,'' she says. ``But I can understand when you feel like you're being misrepresented by Hollywood and you don't have a voice, so you speak out and say, `This is what we're really about.'

``It's unfortunate that it's always the spectacular that gets highlighted, not the everyday story that they're such good people who live by these great standards, and there's a lot of love and family-oriented ties that this community is built upon. But I don't think this film is a blatant misrepresentation of who the Hasidim are. I think Boaz was fair, and he showed both sides of it.''

For all her efforts to understand Hasidic ways and viewpoints, however, Zellweger admits that getting into Sonia's mind-set was as big a challenge as she'd expected.

``The most difficult thing was getting over me and what I think is the truth,'' she reveals. ``I had to put the Renee-ness aside and go to work, accept that Sonia thinks and communicates differently than I do. And she's naive to the degree that she does not expect the things that happen to her would happen to anyone, so she can't figure out the right way to behave in certain situations.''

Zellweger is having better luck charting her own course through the strange world of burgeoning movie stardom. Next up is ``One True Thing,'' in which she plays the ambitious journalist daughter of no less formidable a couple than Meryl Streep and William Hurt.

Not that any of it's easy or, despite comparatively meteoric success, ever was.

``I always leave a day's work going, `Oh God, I hate it! I hate it, and I shoulda done and I coulda done it better.' But that's just me, and I can't help it. But I love it, too. So I really try, and I feel like I can act.

``As for the journey, there've been struggles. I've cried, I've been scared and not sure that I've made the right decisions. There've been times when you called and knew your parents weren't in a really great position to send you 100 bucks, but you ask anyway. You waitress and have guys with single-digit IQs insult you, but you smile and bring 'em a beer, and that's OK.

``But what I've always wanted from it is not out there somewhere. It's been there all along, it's been there ever since the first audition for the American Beef Council and the Coors Lite commercial. The adventure of it and the sense of accomplishment has been there from the beginning.''

Not surprisingly, Zellweger insists on keeping stardom in perspective. She's mildly embarrassed about dating Joshua Pate, half of the brother team that directed ``Deceiver,'' only because it smacks of Hollywood cliche. And although she's starting to buy stuff for her home (``I've never owned anything before!''), there are certain glamorous baubles she still has no interest in.

Even after learning all about them for ``A Price Above Rubies.''

``I got an appreciation for the art of jewelry making this movie, but to me it's still just rocks,'' she says with a laugh. ``It's tchochkes and things hanging off your head; it just looks like stuff, more stuff to worry about.

``I used to wear some jewelry that my mother gave to me, but it got lost. So I learned not to place sentimental value on things that you can't keep for real.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) RENEE's WAY

Since `Jerry Maguire,' Zellweger has taken an unorthodox path

(2) `It's unfortunate that it's always the spectacular that gets highlighted, not the everyday story that they're such good people who live by these great standards, and there's a lot of love and family-oriented ties that this community is built upon. But I don't think this film is a blatant misrepresentation of who the Hasidim are.'

Renee Zellweger

on the controversy over the depiction of New York City's Hasidic Jews in ``A Price Above Rubies''