DATE: Saturday, August 30, 1997             TAG: 9708290060

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  104 lines

ALICIA SILVERSTONE: NO LONGER CLUELESS

AT AGE 18, SHE was every boy's fantasy and every girl's role model - America's sweetheart, at least for that moment.

At 20, she's no longer ``Clueless.''

Her new film, which she produced, is, perhaps prophetically, titled ``Excess Baggage.''

Alicia Silverstone, peeking coquettishly with emerald green eyes beneath her tousled blonde hair, put out a cigarette and commented, with an air of almost desperation, ``I'm just a 20-year-old girl trying to get by with her life.''

She added, ``I'm not yet accustomed to this celebrity thing. I really don't want any part of the Hollywood thing. I'd rather not live in Hollywood. It's phony and it's silly. I'm not used to the celebrity thing yet. I go out and I'm always shocked when someone recognizes me.''

But it's not the usual girl who, while still in her teens, gets a deal to produce her own movies - a $10-million deal with Columbia Pictures allowing her to create her own company, First Kiss Productions. ``Excess Baggage'' is her first production.

Rumors have been flying for months that there was trouble on the set between she and the director she hired, Marco Brambilla, whose only other film before this was the action flick ``Demolition Man.'' Visitors to the set in Vancouver, B. C., which doubles for Seattle in the movie, claim that the star and the director were in each other's faces, arguing over the dialogue.

More rumors: Columbia took the picture back into production to try and give it more humor, ``tweaking'' certain scenes.

Silverstone, sitting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, admitted that she participated in every phase of the production ``from choosing the director, the cast and the locations to doing the dubbing. The girl had to be rambunctious enough to do the things she'd do. I had a vision and that vision had to be upheld. Next time it might be different.''

The plot concerns Emily, a rich girl who stages her own kidnapping in an effort to attract the attention of her neglectful father (Jack Thompson). Things go awry when an unknowing car thief (Benicio Del Toro) steals the car in which she's locked in the trunk.

Silverstone, who has proved to be a good deal more opinionated than Columbia planned, says she was ``co-director'' of the film.

Del Toro, whom she handpicked for her co-starring role, said ``I always sided with Alicia. She was always right in the effort to try and make it more believable.''

Director Brambilla said that he never felt she was usurping his job. ``Alicia has some of the same problems as Emily, the girl she plays,'' he said. ``She works in a very natural way. She has a great idea of what would seem patronizing to a teen audience.''

Indeed, from the first, it was the new generation of moviegoers who made Alicia Silverstone a star.

Born and raised in San Francisco, she spent summers in England, where her parents' families lived. At age 6, her father, Monty Silverstone, got her into modeling - a profession she now says she hated. ``But if your Daddy likes you dressed up and doing that, then you do it. I was one of the lucky ones. I came out of it all right.''

Her mother was a flight attendant for Pan Am. Her father was a real estate developer who always wanted to be an actor, and recently appeared on an episode of ``Unsolved Mysteries.'' He's written a book called ``Monty's Betting Tips.''

Between the ages of 4 and 6, she claims that she secretly believed her mother was pop singer Olivia Newton-John.

She moved to Los Angeles and lost out on an audition for ``The Neverending Story II'' but got a Domino's Pizza commercial and was Fred Savage's dream date in an episode of ``The Wonder Years.''

She turned down an offer to replace Shannen Doherty on ``Beverly Hills 90210,'' and was rejected (too young) for a role in the movie ``Little Women.''

Then she got the part of a sex-crazed teen psycho in ``The Crush,'' (1993) in which she pursued Cary Elwes. MTV voters named her both ``best villain'' and ``breakthrough performance'' of the year. The rock group Aerosmith put her in the video ``Cryin.' '' In it, she looks pouty and hot and bungee jumps off a bridge. MTV voters named it ``the best video of all time.''

She quit Beverly Hills High School ``for career reasons'' and at age 15 became ``legally emancipated'' from her parents so she wouldn't be limited to working minor's hours on ``The Crush.''

It was the role of Cher, the shopaholic fashion plate in ``Clueless,'' that made her a star. ``I eventually loved Cher,'' she said, ``but not at first. I initially thought she was like the snobby girls around in Beverly Hills, but, after working on the role, I saw that she had a good heart.''

She has refused to do nude scenes in any of her movies. Body doubles have been used for several shots. ``I haven't seen any reason why nude shots are really necessary,'' she said. ``I don't expect I will - ever.''

Her appearance at the Academy Awards prompted reports of weight problems; one unkind report that she was more Babe than babe.

At 5-foot-9 and whatever weight, it's plain to see that she currently no longer has the problem.

``I'm a girl trying to grow up and they write all those stories about my weight. I don't think it was quite fair, but I don't care. The most important thing is that girls not think I did anything unusual to be thin. That's not an image I want to project. I don't think weight is that important, one way or another.''

She did fit into the Batgirl suit, although she admits it wasn't comfortable. ``It pinched,'' she said.

Next, she has a great role, opposite Anjelica Huston. The two will play mother-daughter con artists who terrorize men.

Alicia Silverstone turns 21 on Oct. 4. At this advanced age, she's probably out of the running for this year's MTV award for ``most desirable.'' She's too busy keeping her company running to worry about it. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Silverstone

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