THE MANY DIRECTIONS OF KEVIN KLINE : `FIERCE' STAR NO CANDIDATE TO FALL INTO RUT.

Byline: Alan Riding The New York Times

Kevin Kline grows edgy as the conversation shifts from such harmless topics as Shakespeare and Gilbert and Sullivan to the nitty-gritty of his movie career.

It is a not a subject he relishes discussing. He has made memorable films and forgettable films. And now, at the age of 49, enjoying the security of family life and plenty of work, he likes to take things as they come. Yet he continues to be plagued by his reputation as a fine actor who wins less recognition than he deserves.

His friend, comic actor and writer John Cleese, likes to tease him about it, complaining that he turns down major roles that would make him ``a star'' (``He's known in Hollywood as Kevin D. Kline'') and that he cannot make up his mind (``He's the only actor I know who played Hamlet in order to learn to be decisive'').

Others in the business tell him that instead of playing a wide range of roles, he should concentrate on comedy. Kline, slim and youthful-looking, groans.

Still, he is happy about his new movie, ``Fierce Creatures,'' which opened last week, because, as he puts it, he has followed his instinct to ``do what feels right.'' Almost a decade after playing his most acclaimed comic role as the manic Otto in ``A Fish Called Wanda,'' he has teamed up again with Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Palin in what they term ``an equal not a sequel'' to the original hit.

In other words, Otto, who brought Kline an Oscar in 1989 for best supporting actor, is not being resuscitated, but the old gang is.

``They are older, they are richer, they are fatter, and they are back,'' Cleese proclaims.

Kline, sitting in Cleese's production office in West London during a break in filming ``Fierce Creatures,'' said: ``I think it's kinder. John has mellowed. It's not as nasty or mean a movie as `Wanda.' ''

Certainly, in the screenplay by Cleese and former film critic Iain Johnstone, Kline's role is less nasty. He plays Vince McCain, the amoral son of Rod McCain, a greedy New Zealand-born media mogul. Kline is also Rod, playing father and son not as look-alike characters (as he did in ``Dave,'' in which he portrayed an American president and his double) but as two men glaring at each other across the generation gap, Vince waiting for Rod to die and make him rich, Rod hoping Vince will just disappear.

The plot has the Atlanta-based Rod (Rod Almighty, to his underlings) dispatching a former Hong Kong policeman, Rollo Lee (Cleese), to run an English zoo, with orders to earn 20 percent profits.

Rollo's solution is a ``fierce creatures'' policy (``a lethal weapon in every cage''); all other animals will be sold or shot. Soon Vince arrives with Willa Weston (Curtis) to institute ``multiple facility merchandising,'' that is, plastering ads on the animals' cages. Then Rod shows up to confront Vince, and Kline's comic talents rise to the occasion.

But fans of Kline the comic actor may be disappointed by his turn to less-antic parts in his next two films. In Ang Lee's ``Ice Storm,'' scheduled for release later this year, Kline, speaking by telephone from New York, said he plays the ``father of a highly dysfunctional family'' confused by the sexual revolution of the early 1970s. And in Frank Oz's ``In and Out,'' currently in production, he plays a gay high school English teacher outed inadvertently by a former student.

Indeed, 15 years after appearing opposite Meryl Streep in Alan J. Pakula's ``Sophie's Choice,'' Kline continues to take pride in his eclectic taste in movie roles, a pride that some friends view as a stubborn refusal to reach for greater fame.

``I don't think he has always made the best choices on the films he has done,'' Cleese said. ``But he is sort of resolutely noncommercial. That's very praiseworthy in a way. But I think that in many cases his performances have been better than the films.''

Between more sighs, Kline, who exudes intelligence and culture, feels it is time to explain what he calls his ``very primitive, not cerebral, not intellectualized'' approach to acting.

``I have turned down terrific roles in terrific films and I have never had the slightest regret about doing so,'' he said. ``What's not right for me now doesn't interest me.''

Still, for all his commitment to the art of acting, his first calling was music. His father owned a record store in St. Louis, he grew up with the sound of opera echoing through his home, and he majored in music at Indiana University. But then he switched, first studying at the Juilliard drama school in New York and later becoming a founding member of John Houseman's Acting Company. It was then, in the mid-1970s, that he learned the delights of variety.

``We did five or six plays in repertory,'' he recalled. ``One night it would be Gorky; one night it's Shakespeare. And in these plays, you weren't always the romantic lead man or the old character actor or the funny guy. It was about acting. It wasn't about personality.''

His musical background - and a pleasant bass-baritone voice - came in handy. Making his Broadway debut in 1978 as the movie idol Bruce Granit in Harold Prince's musical, ``On the 20th Century,'' he won his first Tony Award. Two seasons later, another Tony came his way when he starred as the Pirate King in Joseph Papp's version of Gilbert and Sullivan's ``Pirates of Penzance.''

Kline did his first screen acting in the film version of this operetta, although it was ``Sophie's Choice,'' released first, that got his movie career off the ground.

Since then, he has had his ups and downs. In 1983, with ``The Big Chill,'' an unexpected hit, he began a long relationship with the director Lawrence Kasdan that has so far brought them together in four more films: ``Silverado,'' ``I Love You to Death,'' ``Grand Canyon'' and ``French Kiss.''

Among his other films are ``Cry Freedom'' and ``Princess Caraboo,'' in which Kline appears with Phoebe Cates, his actress wife and the mother of his two children.

Yet, while ``A Fish Called Wanda'' won him an Academy Award, it is Kline's work in theater that has often given him the aura of an exceptional actor. In the 1980s, he was acclaimed for his role as Captain Bluntschli in George Bernard Shaw's ``Arms and the Man'' at Circle in the Square on Broadway. And his production of ``Hamlet'' - he directed and starred - at New York's Public Theater in 1990 was well received.

``Kline's not just great,'' said Ian Judge, a director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. ``No one else can play tragedy and comedy like he can. He's the only successor to Olivier.''

On the set, Kline likes to do more than recite lines from the screenplay. He often suggests different ways of saying things; he enjoys improvising in the confident knowledge that the director will pick the best version, and he likes to assume his character to the full - and then move on to the next one. In his latest film, though, he was called back to relive the role a year later.

Rather famously, the ending of ``Fierce Creatures'' is not what was originally written, filmed and edited. When an earlier version, directed by Robert Young (``Splitting Heirs''), was shown to test groups a year ago, the response was that the film was funny but that the end was wrong.

A rewrite and a reshoot of the last 15 minutes were ordered, and the budget grew from $20 million to $25 million. When the cast came together again last summer, a new director, Fred Schepisi (``Roxanne''), was in charge.

Kline, who saw the first version last year, said he was not convinced a reshoot was necessary but was pleased with the new ending. Why not? Instead of being dispatched by a rhinoceros, Vince is given an ingenious comic final scene.

Now, close to completing his fourth film in rapid succession, Kline is eager to return to the stage, ever searching for a different experience.

``You know, actors have this weird need to be known, to express themselves,'' he continued. ``But for me, the more different masks you wear, the more of yourself you're going to allow through the mask. The mask is the trick that allows you to be more who you are.''

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Photo: (1--2) Opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in ``Fierce Creatures,'' Kevin Kline plays both a lecherous executive bent on squeezing profits out of an English zoo, above, and that character's father, a ruthless media mogul, below.