LASSE COMES HOME, BUT SOON HE'LL GO FOR `CHOCOLAT'.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Lasse Hallstrom, director of such great movies as ``My Life as a Dog,'' ``What's Eating Gilbert Grape'' and the new ``The Cider House Rules,'' has settled on a leading lady for his next big-screen project.

``Chocolat,'' which will shoot in London and Paris this spring, will star ``English Patient'' Oscar winner Juliette Binoche.

He says that in the film, her character and a young daughter come to a French hamlet in the late '50s and - through the use of chocolate - ``get villagers to open their minds and their souls.''

``Chocolate and cocoa was credited with working miracles on people in ancient times,'' says the Swedish filmmaker, who now lives in upstate New York with wife Lena Olin and their two children.

``It's an enchanting, charming little story,'' he says of his planned adaptation of the English novel by Joanne Harris.

Hallstrom's adaptation of ``Cider House Rules'' - which will broaden its run to 1,000 U.S. theaters next month - is less dark than the novel on which it is based.

``I toned down some of the more bizarre elements of the orphanage and the cider house to make it more emotionally accessible,'' he says of the drama about a lad who helps harvest apples after leaving the orphanage where he is raised.

``It is a story about the importance of family, and I am most proud that it goes to the audience's heart.

That is the most rewarding response for a director.''

Hallstrom's picks

Which '99 films will end up as best picture Oscar nominees? ``Cider House Rules'' director Hallstrom feels his toughest competition will be ``American Beauty'' - which he describes as ``charming, funny, with great performances'' - and ``The Insider.''

The latter, an expose about the tobacco industry, has pretty much been rejected by the masses, but - like ``American Beauty'' - is a favorite of the critics.

Downloading Cindy

D.L. Hughley explores sensitive territory with humor once again when Cindy Margolis, the superhot beauty who holds the Guinness record for most downloaded images on the Internet, guests on his ``The Hughleys'' during February sweeps.

``I play his new neighbor. It's the first time D.L.'s character has a crush on a white woman,'' reports Margolis.

``He's thinking, here he's a successful black man, living in the suburbs - does this attraction mean he's losing his blackness? Is he going to start playing golf and going to Aspen?''

Meanwhile, industrious Cindy continues doing monthly ``In Your Dreams'' specials for E! Entertainment.

She's launched a line of beauty products on the Home Shopping Network that will also soon be available on her Web site.

(If you don't know cindymargolis.com, it's where she keeps in touch with her 60 million-plus fans.)

She's preparing a late-night variety/talk show out of South Beach, Fla., that'll debut via CBS' Eyemark syndication arm this summer. Oh, and Cindy and her groom, restaurateur Guy Starkman, are hoping to start a family.

It scares CBS when she says she wants to get pregnant, Cindy admits.

But she says ``I have a friend on E!'s `Wild On' - Brooke Burke - who's four months pregnant and still looks hot. Of course, they won't be able to hide it much longer.

I think I'll only really have to take four months out'' - of posing for cheesecake posters and such.

Sign of the times

John Wells and Aaron Sorkin continue to push the political envelope on ``West Wing.''

One of the lead characters in the episode of the NBC show that shoots early next month will be a deaf woman running for high office against a conservative Republican who's held the post for more than 30 years.

The call is out for an actor, fluent in sign language, to play the translator of the candidate in question.

This, too, shall pass

Jenny McCarthy isn't committed to her new dark-hair look.

The formerly oh-so-blond Jenny says of her brunet coif, ``I'm keeping it for now. I kind of like the change - you know, the way you feel excited when you get a new haircut.

It is tough to wear black hair, though, without looking too severe. You have to be careful what clothes you wear.''

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1) HALLSTROM

(2) BINOCHE

(3) OLIN