METAMORPHOSIS OF AN ACTRESS\'Angels & Insects' star eschews blockbuster temptations in quest\for more serious roles.

Byline: Janet Weeks Daily News Staff Writer

While in Los Angeles promoting the sexy Victorian drama "Angels & Insects," British actress Patsy Kensit got a call from a major studio about a role in a coming action-adventure blockbuster.

Kensit seemed a natural choice. After all, she is probably best-known to American audiences for playing Mel Gibson's love interest in 1989's "Lethal Weapon II."

But that was then. These days, Kensit isn't interested in cutting up with super-celebrities in flimsy films.

"I read the script, and there was no way I even wanted to take a meeting," said Kensit of the studio's proposition. "My agent thinks I'm insane. You know, 'Who do you think you are?'

"But I just know what I want to do. I'm not interested in being a movie star. I want to become a good actress."

It is a goal that many think Kensit, 27, already has attained. Her role as the porcelain-skinned Eugenia in "Angels & Insects" has received nearly unanimous critical acclaim. Janet Maslin of The New York Times said her performance "embodies the tremulous, alluring female of the species in ways that fully capture the film's disturbing intentions."

Such raves are not new to Kensit. Her turn as a typist who tells all in 1991's "Twenty-One," a movie that became the darling of that year's Sundance Film Festival, landed her glowing reviews in such magazines as GQ, Premiere, Vanity Fair, Interview and American Film.

Yet Kensit remains a woman not easily impressed by compliments. In her long career - she started in films at age 4 - she's learned that there are as many ups as downs.

"I've made some good films and some God-awful films," she said. "But I've learned something from every single one, whether it's patience or whatever. And I feel really privileged to be able to do the kind of work I'm doing now."

"Angels & Insects" is a beautifully crafted tale of love and lust - and insects - set in Victorian England. It is the story of naturalist William Adamson (played by Mark Rylance) who has spent years in the Amazon jungle meticulously gathering bugs.

When he loses his work in a shipwreck, he is taken under the wing of a rich amateur bug collector who lives in a great house with his wife and children, who range in age from adults to youngsters.

Kensit plays eldest daughter Eugenia, a wan, demure beauty who engages in a form of hit-and-run flirting with the instantly smitten scientist. After the two marry, Eugenia reveals a sexuality that is shocking by Victorian standards. As the film proceeds, secrets are uncovered that lead to a startling conclusion.

Kensit said the appeal of the film was in playing a woman who fully metamorphoses.

"When you first meet Eugenia, she's the epitome of Victorian correctness and virginity," said Kensit, whose accent hints at what she describes as working-class roots.

"She's this creamy butterfly up until her wedding night, when she becomes so sexually precocious and behaves in a way that a virgin certainly wouldn't in the 19th century."

By the movie's end, Eugenia is an "overweight, narcissistic, unpleasant human being," said Kensit. "To cover all that ground in a 90-minute film is a dream role for any actor."

Eugenia's transformation is helped, in part, by Paul Brown's brilliant costuming. In the beginning, Eugenia wears vividly colored gowns encrusted with flowers and fruit. By the end, she is a bloated queen bee in drab, puffy garb.

"It was a great help in the morning to get into work at 5:30 and get into the corsets and get our hair put up," said Kensit. "It really helped me get into character."

The part also required Kensit to remove her eyebrows, bleach her hair and gain 20 pounds. A naturally small woman with a thin, bony face, she found gaining weight difficult, she said.

"I'm vegetarian and it was a small-budget film. There wasn't the kind of resources to do a special diet. So I had to eat a lot of high-fat foods."

In one particularly disturbing scene, Rylance's character introduces Kensit to hawk moths, large furry creatures. The moths are attracted to Eugenia's opulent gown, which they mistake for the moon. As more and more moths alight on her dress, she becomes increasingly hysterical.

Kensit said filming the scene was "horrendous, the worst night of my life. They practically stick onto you. It was horrible. Horrible."

Bug-fearing Eugenia is the antithesis of the character Kensit plays in her next film, "Grace of My Heart," which is due for a fall release.

Directed by Allison Anders ("Mi Vida Loca") and produced by Martin Scorsese, the film stars Kensit, Illeana Douglas, John Turturro, Matt Dillon, Eric Stoltz and Bridget Fonda in a portrait of the rock 'n' roll music industry's early days.

Kensit plays a songwriting "hippie chick, a cross between Michelle Phillips and Marianne Faithfull."

In some ways, the character is close to Kensit. Although she got her start in acting playing Mia Farrow's daughter in "The Great Gatsby," she turned to singing at age 14, performing in her brother's rock band, Eighth Wonder.

(In an ironic twist, Kensit later played Farrow in a made-for-television movie about the actress's relationship with Woody Allen).

Her work with Eighth Wonder led to her casting as Crepe Suzette, the overnight singing sensation in Julien Temple's much ballyhooed 1986 musical flop, "Absolute Beginners," which starred David Bowie.

Kensit stayed connected with the music scene when, at 18, she married Dan Donovan, keyboard player for Big Audio Dynamite. (They later divorced.)

But acting remains her passion.

"My raison d'etre is to make films that I would want to see myself. I made that decision about two years ago, and I'm sticking to that," she said.

"I want to have a career. You never hear people talk about careers here anymore. It's all about big movies and the great new thing. I aspire to people like Julie Christy and Donald Sutherland and Harvey Keitel and Jodie Foster. I'm not equating myself with them. But these people have done exquisite work, interesting things, odd movies."That's a career, and that's what I want to have."

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Photo Surrounded by butterflies in "Angels & Insects," Patsy Kensit's demure Victorian girl transforms herself - in more ways than one - during the film.