IN THE `ART' OF INTERACTION, RANGE, MOLINA A QUICK STUDY.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Theater Writer

A no-name Hollywood director has just called to ask if you'd like to appear in his new feature film about the, um, adult movie industry.

Your part, a fleeting character role, would require you to portray a crazed, coked-up junkie on a shotgun rampage. With a foreign accent. In your underwear.

Should you: A) Fire your agent - immediately; B) Beg the producers of ``All My Children'' to offer you a multi-year contract; C) Take the job, mostly because, what the hell, it might be fun, and besides, you've got a bit of down time between two other big-budget studio gigs?

If you're Alfred Molina, the answer is, obviously, C.

``And it was great,'' the actor recalls of his spectacularly twisted turn in Paul Thomas Anderson's ``Boogie Nights.''

``You know, it's 90 percent luck, 10 percent judgment,'' Molina continues. ``Someone said to me, `That movie, you know, that little 10-minute cameo, will be a defining moment in your career.' And I wish I could say, `Yes, I knew all that, and that's why I planned it that way.' I wish I could say that, but I can't.''

Of course, one actor's luck is another's ability to handle a wide range of difficult and perversely compelling roles, something Molina has achieved repeatedly.

Since the late 1980s, the London native has averaged about three feature films per year. In more than one case, he has practically walked away with the picture, despite being saddled with such hard-to-love characters as Sally Field's tyrannical Iranian husband in ``Not Without My Daughter,'' and the murderously jealous lover of Swinging London playwright Joe Orton, in ``Prick Up Your Ears,'' probably the breakthrough role of his movie career. He'll be playing the ultimate moustache-twirling cad, Snidely Whiplash, in the upcoming feature film version of ``Dudley Do-Right.''

Molina also has demonstrated his extraordinary ear for accents, a gift he attributes to his mixed Spanish-Italian parentage. He'll show that aptitude again during the next two months at the Doolittle Theatre in Hollywood, where he'll be co-starring with Alan Alda and Victor Garber in Yasmina Reza's international hit and Tony Award-winning play, ``Art.''

Molina has trouble accounting fully for why ``Art'' has hit the zeitgeist jackpot.

``I dunno, it's a phenomenon in many ways,'' he says. ``Yasmina has written I think four or five plays, and this is the only one that's been like a huge, huge international success. Her other plays were successes in France, but this one has transcended every culture and language. Any barrier that you might imagine a play might come up against, she's like leapt over it.''

``One of the lesser kind critics of London called it a lightweight comedy masquerading as a great work. And I actually think it's the opposite: I think it's a great piece of work masquerading as a lightweight comedy.''

Although an all-white painting is the engine that drives ``Art,'' the play is far less concerned with aesthetics than it is with masculine rituals of competition and one-upmanship.

``Most men, when we talk about anything with each other, there is always a degree of competitiveness. There's an element of jousting, or adversarial kind of to-ing and fro-ing,'' Molina says. ``However friendly or fun it might be, we kind of arm-wrestle with each other.''

The pecking order among the three men is established quickly. Garber's character, Serge, is a dermatologist. His mentor, Marc, played by Alda, is an aeronautical engineer. Molina's character, Yvan, is the manager of an office supply store, a job he procured through his father-in-law.

Molina describes Yvan as the group peacemaker, whose quirky way of looking at things amuses his friends and justifies his admission into a trio whose other members outclass him in money and education.

The actor says that he and his two somewhat more famous co-stars developed their own stylized ways of interacting during rehearsals for the show's Broadway run.

``We knew that we had to, in a sense, get into the life of the play somehow very, very quickly,'' he explains. ``And so what we did is we consciously, deliberately spent a lot of time in the first few weeks of rehearsal socializing. We went out for dinners, we kind of hung out, went and did things together. And as it turned out, we enjoyed doing it and we became friends.''

Gradually, the men began to take on the personalities of their characters. Molina says he would be cracking jokes much of the time, while Alda and Garber would ``lock horns over something, in a very kind of amiable way.''

``And we did this interview, the three of us together, and we were discussing this and how this worked out. And Alan said - and it was brilliant, and I must credit him, too - he said, `We sit around together and wait until someone says something sincere. And then the other two let him have it!'

``And that's precisely what we did. And so we would sit around and somebody would say, `Oh, I've got a letter from so-and-so again, so-and-so's got a terrible heart attack.' And the other two would rip it apart! It stayed the same right through the run of the play.''

Eventually, it was Molina who got the final word, when he won last year's Tony Award for best actor.

``Yeah, it was very nice, and the other two were very gentlemanly about it,'' he says. ``And I tried not to mention it too often. I was very good, I didn't crow - not in public, anyway.''

Funny and informal, Molina, 45, seems to have a gift for fitting in. As he chats, lapsing now and then into one spot-on accent or another - Irish, American, Slavic or vaguely Middle Eastern, depending on the anecdote - you sense that he could make friends quickly even in a roomful of strangers.

Assimilation comes naturally to him. While growing up in London, he says he became infatuated with a group of American teens whose parents were serving overseas in the U.S. military. The Americans more or less adopted him, and on weekends he began a secret life hanging out with these cultural extraterrestrials.

``At my age, at the time, I thought these kids were like unbelievably exotic. To me they were like incredibly cool. They seemed so cool to me, the way they talked, the way they dressed, the things they said. I think partly they had the confidence that comes with money. Or at least they were living a lifestyle that seemed a lot more affluent than mine. You know, their dad was like an officer in the Army. My dad was a waiter in a restaurant. So there was an exoticism on that level.

``But also they were just so confident. I think Americans take it for granted because you don't know, because you just accept it as the norm. But American kids, compared to the way European kids are, are incredibly confident. Like in Europe, kids are often told just to kind of remember their place, `Don't overreach yourself.' Whereas American kids are told, `You can do anything you want, you can be anybody you want.' ''

Molina learned everything else he needed to know about Americans, American culture and the American language from - where else? - Hollywood.

``The root of the American accent is in fact European,'' he says. ``It's Italian, Jewish, Irish. So there's something about the rhythm of America that somehow made absolute sense to me. It didn't sound foreign to me at all.

``I remember when I was a kid playing in the street, we used to play, and we used to go watch Saturday morning pictures (movies). And we'd play cowboys and Indians and cops and robbers - we'd play with American accents.''

Ever since he met his first Americans, Molina says, he wanted to live in the United States. It took him 40 years. Now happily settled in Los Angeles with his wife, English actress Gill Gascoigne, it seems the only thing the easygoing Molina can't abide are expatriate British malcontents.

``I like L.A. I like L.A. for all the reasons most people hate it. I don't belong to that group of expatriate Brits who hang out in Santa Monica and bitch and moan how you can't get a decent cup of tea. My feeling is, well, drink the coffee, if that's what's important to you. I've got no time for that. I think it's insulting. If you don't like it, go home! Make more room for those of us who do like it.''

A sly grin steals over Molina's face, a sure sign that another accent is coming.

``Ooh, don't get me started,'' he says, in a sort of Cockney Billy Crystal, ``don't get me started!''

THE FACTS

What: ``Art.''

Starring: Alan Alda, Victor Garber and Alfred Molina.

Behind the scenes: Written by Yasmina Raza. Translated by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Matthew Warchus.

Where: James A. Doolittle Theatre, 1615 N. Vine St., Hollywood

When: Opens tonight. Performances 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays; through March 14.

Tickets: $20 to $60. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Alfred Molina and Alan Alda

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News

(2) Alfred Molina: ``I like L.A. for all the reasons most people hate it.''

Gus Ruelas/Daily News