TURNING THE TABLOIDS COURTENEY COX LEAVES MONICA BEHIND IN `DIRT'.

Byline: David Kronke Television Critic

Courteney Cox, who stars as a tabloid editor in the new FX series ``Dirt,'' received insight into just how well-oiled a machine the celebrity-tabloid industry really is when she paid a visit to the London offices of The Sun.

``I just wanted to watch how it works,'' Cox recalls. ``I walked through one bank of computers, and someone asked me, `Do you want to see what you've been doing for the past day?' And he showed me online photos of my leaving my hotel that morning, getting in the car and entering the Sun building. And I had been there for all of five minutes.''

Cox plays Lucy Spiller, a brittle, driven career woman who chases down Hollywood's most salacious stories.

Fans of Monica Geller, Cox's character on ``Friends,'' may not even recognize the actress in her nasty new role, which she says is ``absolutely'' her motivation for taking it on.

``When I first signed on to do the show, we were developing it, and I was just going to produce,'' Cox recalls. ``The original idea didn't have a lead female, and the main character was not an editor. But we knew we wanted it to be set in a tabloid.''

Novelist and playwright Matthew Carnahan was brought in and tinkered with the concept, introducing, at FX's suggestion, ``a female antihero.''

`Flashes of real brilliance'

Carnahan and Cox met with The Sun's editor Rebecca Wade, which Carnahan said inspired ``a revelation about the character -- I got a much better take on the character, went back to work on her. The secret for me was prior to meeting her, I never really respected the character, and you can't write like that. After meeting Rebecca, I had a tremendous amount of respect for (Lucy). I connected with her wit and sense of mischief and flashes of real brilliance. It was an interesting thing to meet this person and have my preconceived notions blown away.''

At that point, Cox says, ``The script was so rich, I had to play it. The appeal of not playing a character who was anything like Monica was very much part of it.''

Cox hopes ``Friends'' fans will accept her as a dark character.

``The pilot is very much an ensemble piece, and Lucy's very much the puppet master. They can watch as I ease my way out of Monica into Lucy, and they can ease their way in, as well -- (Lucy's behavior) does get worse.''

As does virtually every character's in the series. In ``Dirt,'' the young Hollywood stars Lucy's reporters cover have all manner of hedonistic vices and peccadilloes, all portrayed with a frankness that pushes the envelope even for basic cable.

``It's amazing what you can do on FX,'' Cox marvels. ``We've created this kind of a morbid world, then we show what happens in it. On `Friends,' the dialogue was pretty mamby-pamby compared to what we do on this show. If FX actually says no to something we want to do, then chances are we probably shouldn't do it.''

As the series demonstrates, the dynamic between stars and the tabloids can be trickier than simply dismissing scandalous exposes as lies. Tabloids can help careers as easily as they can ruin personal lives, particularly at a time when fan interest in celebrity seems to be attaining feverish highs.

`Not a great bargain for an actor'

``The difference between a tabloid and the real news is like the difference between a comic book and (Russian novelist Fyodor) Dostoyevsky,'' notes Ian Hart, co-star of the series, who plays photographer Don Konkey.

``Celebrities are aware of their part of the bargain. Naively, that's what we do, and they get bitten in the ass. Nine times out of 10, it's probably not a great bargain for an actor.''

``It's a vicious cycle -- the public wants to see glossy tabloids, and the glossy tabloids need paparazzi,'' Cox adds from the makeup trailer on the set of the show, where she has been running lines with Hart. ``You can't get away from it; the competition is so strong. There are so many of them, it gets out of hand.''

Cox and her husband, actor David Arquette (who also has a new series debuting this week: ABC's ``In Case of Emergency,'' on Wednesday), have found themselves tabloid fodder through the years.

``That was annoying,'' Cox concedes. ``But nothing gets me down.

``Sometimes, I'll say `no comment' if they try to contact me. But I've never tried to sue. It's not worth it.''

The show also takes hits at young Hollywood's party patrol: ``Everyone's taking a hit here,'' she says. ``We're not sparing anybody.''

Carnahan demurs on the ethics of the industry his new series essays.

``Do (celebrities) deserve that sort of scrutiny? I don't know. Is this just the price of fame? I don't know. Is it some moral or ethical comeuppance? I'm not sure. There are questionable tactics used by paparazzi and tabloid editors and stringers all the time.

``The bigger question or observation is the gluttonous, nonstop appetite for it. That, for me, is what's surprising.

``It's this bonfire -- the more you feed it, the bigger it grows, the bigger it grows, the more out of control it gets. It's a bonfire of excess and cultural shadows.''

But, Carnahan confesses, he's not immune to the allure of the tabloids himself.

``As a result of doing this show, I'm hooked too,'' he admits. ``In our writing room, we have 30 of these things on our table at any given time. So, yeah, you can catch me reading the latest on Britney.''

David Kronke, [phone]

[e-mail]

DIRT

What: Courteney Cox stars as a cold-blooded celebrity-tabloid editor.

Where: FX.

When: 10 p.m. Tuesdays.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

(color) Courteney Cox

on her character in ``Dirt''