FROM VILLAIN TO DIRECTOR : VALLEY BOY KEVIN SPACEY THINKS HE'S ACTED EVIL ENOUGH.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

Kevin Spacey wants to pull a Keyser Soze.

The Oscar-winning actor, known for the intensity and radiant evil he can bring to the screen, is ready to change his image. Whether he'll be as successful at it as the signature screen creation Soze from ``The Usual Suspects'' was remains to be seen.

But Spacey is no one to underestimate. Even if his on-screen ferocity is just an act, the West Valley native's determination and focused intelligence is not.

Spacey recently completed his feature directing debut, ``Albino Alligator.'' And no, he's not pulling a Sean Penn; though he adored filmmaking, there's no question acting remains his first love.

But after a remarkable two years that not only saw ``Alligator'' and the ``Usual Suspects'' Supporting Actor Academy Award, but also distinguished and disturbing work in ``Seven,'' ``Swimming With Sharks'' and ``Looking for Richard,'' Spacey knows better than anybody that it's time for a course adjustment.

``I suddenly recognized, wow, the power of motion pictures is really incredible,'' said the Juilliard-trained Spacey, who won a Tony Award for Neil Simon's ``Lost in Yonkers'' and can claim an impressive list of stage credits that include Shakespeare, Ibsen, O'Neill and Chekov. ``I've spent 15 years working in diverse ways, always trying new stuff. Then, suddenly, you're the new ultimate villain.

``I've recognized that. It's been a great run, I've had an incredible time exploring this territory. But I'm pretty much done with that. For the moment.''

If the terrible trio from ``Suspects,'' ``Seven'' and ``Sharks'' were not enough to scare anybody off for a lifetime, wallowing in the dark shadows of ``Albino Alligator'' would likely finish the job.

A hostage drama set inside the appropriately named Last Chance Bar, the ensemble piece is, in Spacey's words, ``not about whether people are going to live or die, but about what it is that people are willing to choose to live with. The notion that we are absolutely incapable of knowing what the person next to us is capable of doing from second to second. And that behavior is often unsettling and unexplainable.''

In the story by first-time screenwriter Christian Forte, three less-than-swift break-in artists (Matt Dillon, Gary Sinise and William Fichtner) stumble into the middle of a federal arms smuggling investigation. The New Orleans tavern where the criminals seek to elude the heat is soon surrounded by police and ATF agents.

As tensions rise inside the Last Chance, lines of loyalty between the crooks and their captives (Faye Dunaway, Viggo Mortensen, John Spencer, Skeet Ulrich, M. Emmet Walsh) slip and shatter.

Although it starts out with car chases, ``Albino Alligator'' quickly turns into a hothouse character session, filmed almost entirely on a single set. Spacey was drawn to this kind of material for several reasons.

``It had a kind of theatricality to it, and if I have any kind of strength, it's in my theater background, in terms of how to work with actors and shape a story,'' Spacey, his dark hair tipped with striking blond highlights, said in a soft but authoritative voice. ``Then there was the fact that some of my favorite movies were early Hitchcock movies - which were all box dramas - and Sidney Lumet's first film, `12 Angry Men.' ''

Shooting almost entirely on one set also enabled Spacey to film the story in sequence and build up an atmosphere of escalating claustrophobia and desperation.

``I felt that was going to be best for the movie, best for the actors, best for me to be able to learn as I went,'' he said. ``And that by the time we got to that end scene, we would all have been in that room for 22, 23 days, and people would be stripped naked.''

Nice artistic impulses. But calculation of an almost Sozean deviousness also went into the equation. ``I thought to myself, look, I'm never gonna get final cut my first time out. It's a battle not even worth fighting,'' he reasoned. ``But, by choosing a film that takes place primarily in one location and shooting what I want to see, what are they gonna do with me in the end? In essence, that put me in a position of much greater control because there wasn't a great deal of coverage. So we set out to do that.''

Of course, that presented its challenges, too; it's hard to keep a single set interesting for an entire film without getting distractingly flashy. To achieve that required focusing in creatively on his stars. According to at least one tough judge among that crew, the director was perfectly suited for the task.

``I really do think 50 percent of a director's talent is directing actors, naturally,'' said Oscar winner Faye Dunaway, who has given some of the most memorable performances (``Bonnie and Clyde,'' ``Chinatown,'' ``Network'') for some of Hollywood's finest directors. ``And Kevin was marvelous at understanding your needs, casting and all of those things. Plus, he's a real Renaissance talent, a great actor who's a very well-prepared and innovative director.''

For his part, Spacey learned as much about himself as he did about filmmaking. ``I didn't anticipate as many right-brain activities as I had to occupy myself with,'' he revealed. ``You learn your capacity for what kind of leader you want to be, you learn your capacity for patience, and you even learn your capacity for love of what you're doing.''

``Albino Alligator'' served another character-building purpose after it was shot. Spacey was in the middle of editing the film together last March when he won his Academy Award.

``The morning after the Oscars, I kicked everybody out of the hotel room at 5:30, and at 9 a.m. we were on the dubbing stage with this movie,'' he said proudly. ``Last year was a great experience, but I was grateful every day to have this movie to work on. It's the thing that kept me grounded and kept me focused and kept me from getting a big, swelled head about all the stuff that was going on - all of which was very great, but I don't know what my response to it would've been if I hadn't had this particular thing to concentrate on.''

Spacey credits his parents with instilling the unpretentious work ethic he cherishes. He credits his Valley upbringing with nurturing his passion for acting.

``I was really fortunate to find not only teachers, but also classmates who were as interested in great writers and discovering theater,'' said Spacey, who attended Chatsworth High with fellow 1995 Oscar nominee Mare Winningham (``Georgia'') and just missed acting in the same drama department with Val Kilmer. ``That really had a great effect on my decision to become an actor. It was so creative and so welcoming, an atmosphere in which you were encouraged to try so many different things and it was just enormous fun.

``I look back on my years in the Valley as formative ones for me deciding that, maybe, I can do this as a career.''

Which he obviously can. But that brings us back to the tricky subject of career perception. While Spacey insists on the range of his resume, there is no denying that even his nonvillainous stage roles tend to explore the darker territory of the human soul.

And indeed, Spacey's first big media splash was as the memorably twisted crime kingpin Mel Profitt on the television series ``Wiseguy.'' Most of his other film roles - in the likes of ``Glengarry Glen Ross,'' ``Consenting Adults,'' ``Outbreak'' and ``The Ref'' - were pretty troubled dudes, if not outright evil.

Then there's his next major movie appearance, in the '50s crime drama ``L.A. Confidential.'' Spacey says he plays the good guy in that spring release. But the movie is derived from a book by James Ellroy, an author with an uncanny knack for making everyone he creates act pretty sick.

``He eventually tries to do the right thing,'' Spacey cautioned of the ``Confidential'' character, ``and ends up paying dearly for it. But you know, I can't suddenly come out and do the new romantic lead. Audiences won't accept it and I'd probably be attacked for it. `Who does he think he is? We want him the way we want him.'

``So, y'know, you just have to do things very gradually,'' he reckoned. ``So I'm slowly starting to do new and different stuff. The fact of the matter is that if I don't, if I show up in the next four or five movies playing the villain, then in about two or three years people are gonna be writing, `Whatever happened to him? He used to be really interesting and now he always does the same thing.'

``And you have to realize that, the process that I go through, what gets me out of bed in the morning, has to be something that compels me and is new, something that asks me to bring something brand-new to it, that I've never brought to anything before.''

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) The Spacey age

Busy Oscar winner adds directing to his resume with `Albino Alligator'

(2) `Last year was a great experience, but I was grateful every day to have this movie to work on.'

Kevin Spacey

on his Oscar win and the making of ``Albino Alligator''

David R. Crane/Daily News

(3) Viggo Mortensen, left, John Spencer, Faye Dunaway, Gary Sinise and William Fichtner in a scene from ``Albino Alligator.''

(4) ``Albino Alligator'' star Faye Dunaway, right, calls Spacey ``marvelous at understanding your needs, casting and all of those things ... a great actor who's a very well-prepared and innovative director.''