SHE'S ALL ABOUT THE ACTION `GILMORE GIRLS' STAR LAUREN GRAHAM GETS PHYSICAL IN `THE PACIFIER'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Lauren Graham figures she should be a superhero by now.

Yet the most heroic thing that the actress does - spinning out tongue- twisting reams of smart dialogue on broadcast TV's most literate series, the WB's ``Gilmore Girls'' - could be the very thing standing in the way of her dream.

``You can't really put something like that out there,'' Graham, who celebrates her 38th birthday this week, says with the uniquely sweetened sarcasm that has carried her through more than 100 episodes as cool young mom Lorelei Gilmore. `` 'You know that girl who talks a lot? She really wants to kick somebody's ass.' They'll be like, 'What?' People really kind of picture you for what you've already done.''

Maybe the unexpected success of her new movie, ``The Pacifier,'' will help Graham's cause.

In the family comedy, she plays an armed forces veteran-turned-school principal who takes a shine to Vin Diesel's Navy SEAL-turned-baby sitter/bodyguard. When bad guys threaten him and his charges, it was supposed to be Graham's character to the rescue.

``I love when actors say, 'I do all my own stunts.' I really wanted to walk around saying, 'I do all my own stunt!' '' Graham says with a laugh. (Her stunt basically involved running over a small hill and tackling a villain). ``But they hired a stunt person. But then she got injured, because my stunt was so difficult and dangerous! So then I got to do my own stunt, and it was really fun.

``I don't understand why I'm not an action hero,'' she reiterates. ``I think this will definitely get me some phone calls.''

If Graham seems to have difficulty taking things seriously, that may be because she works so hard at her regular job and can't view movie work as much more than a lark.

The hourlong comic drama ``Gilmore,'' which co-stars Alexis Bledel as free-spirited Lorelei's serious-minded daughter, Rory, is precision work and lots of it.

``I always try to do something during the hiatus,'' Graham explains. ``It makes me come back to work fresher somehow. The show is such a specific discipline. You have to say every word as written, it's 12 pages a day we do. It's these insane hours. Anything else feels like a vacation, even if you're working.''

``Pacifier'' co-stars confirm that Graham's hiatus demeanor is so relaxed, it's infectious.

``The second I started working with her, sooo comfortable,'' says Diesel, the ``Fast and the Furious'' tough guy who needed a supportive atmosphere for his first foray into comedy. ``That's important because we had to get into it really quickly. That's a testament to her and her talent.''

``She's a lovely gal and very, very sweet,'' adds Brad Garrett, himself a hard-working TV actor from another long-running show, ``Everybody Loves Raymond.'' ``And she really wouldn't talk to me much. She kept saying that if I had something to say to her, it had to go through a guy named Ronnie. And then the restraining order really put a damper on everything.

``No, she's really cool. We really had a fun time.''

This despite such classic fun-crushing traits as workaholism (albeit reluctant) and bookishness (she went to New York University, Southern Methodist and Barnard, and still considers reading the best time a gal can have).

Perhaps genetics have something to do with it. Graham's dad is a Washington lobbyist, a job that requires good personality skills. Or maybe doesn't, when your client is the U.S. candy industry.

``He was, like, the launderers industrial organization when I was growing up,'' Graham recalls, no residual sense of the universe's cruel irony registering in her voice. ``But now, yes, it's this crazy expectation that he brings candy everywhere he goes. But now he's full of boring chocolate facts.''

Actually, Graham adores her father, candyman or not. He essentially raised her in suburban Virginia after her English mother returned home to pursue a singing career when Lauren was 5.

``I always identified as an only child,'' Graham explains. ``Elementary and junior high, it was just me and my dad; that's why I didn't learn how to wear makeup.

``I got a lot of information out of books. I had aunts, and my stepmother was great, and I'd see my mother about once a year. But there are so many great things about that. I was so independent. And my dad would take me to every play that came to the Kennedy Center, and ballet and the museums. It was just what he was interested in, and he had to bring me along. We had some great experiences.''

Never married herself, Graham admits that, great personality notwithstanding, romance isn't easy when you're playing TV's hippest single mom.

``It's difficult,'' she confirms. ``The only time I ever meet anybody is at an awards show or something, and that's not really a realistic place to start a relationship. It's challenging because there just isn't a lot of opportunity. But I'm also thankful, in some ways, that I don't have kids I'm leaving at home right now. Because there's nothing I can do about this schedule, and I feel bad enough for my dog.''

Demanding as it is, Graham would not give up ``Gilmore Girls'' for anything. This season, the show emerged from a dry ratings patch to become one of the WB's few reliable audience-getters.

``The show's evolved,'' she observes. ``It's gotten more comedic, I think. They thought the strength of the show was its voice, and it doesn't sound like any other show in that way.

``It's challenging sometimes. We shoot so many pages, and it's all that language, and you just want it to be rooted in something so it's not just chitchat. We're encouraged to do it faster, faster, faster - so we just do the best we can to have it come from somewhere.''

As for cracking the century episode mark, Graham - whose previous television work included sitcom guest shots and recurring minor roles on ``Caroline in the City,'' ``NewsRadio'' and ``Law & Order'' - is at a loss for explanation.

``I'm surprised by anything,'' she says. ``You know, I only made it through 13 episodes of anything before this. When this started, I literally thought someone was joking when they said, 'You're gonna be on Thursday night opposite ``Friends.'' ' I figured we'd be done by December, forget it.

``What I've learned is, in everything that has to do with, probably, life, but definitely show business, all you can do is the best work that you can do, and you have no idea how it's gonna hit people or what the shelf life of it will be. I mean, some of my favorite shows never hit 100 episodes. So it is surprising.''

Even more surprising: the popular reaction to ``Bad Santa,'' the wickedly funny travesty of Christmas movies in which Graham played a bartender with a Kris Kringle fetish. That unexpected 2003 hit may not have made her a superhero, but at least it gave her a new stereotype to explore.

``Since 'Bad Santa,' I get sent a lot of floozie-floo scripts,'' she reveals. ``That's certainly not been my life, but I read, I have a good imagination, I can guess.''

Later this year, we'll see Graham in ``The Mogul,'' a film about a small-town loser (Jeff Bridges) who thinks making a porn film will improve his life. Graham plays an ex-Playboy bunny who serves as a kind of technical adviser.

``There's no sex or nudity in the thing,'' she assures us. ``But see? You play one floozie, then you'll play more.''

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

GILMORE GIRLS 

What: Hourlong comic drama about a mother and daughter.

Where: The WB (Channel 5).

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) `Girl' power

`Gilmore's' literate Lauren Graham gets a taste of the action in `The Pacifier'

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

(2) ``The show's evolved,'' says Lauren Graham, right, of ``Gilmore Girls,'' on which she co-stars with Alexis Bledel, left, and which recently passed the 100-episode milestone. ``It's gotten more comedic, I think. They thought the strength of the show was its voice, and it doesn't sound like any other show in that way.''

(3) no caption (Lauren Graham)

(4) Graham plays a principal with armed-forces experience who helps baby sitter Vin Diesel in ``The Pacifier.'' ``I don't understand why I'm not an action hero,'' she says.