How would TV's La Femme Nikita kill you in her off-hours?

"By saying you can't have any."

Your show gets called "sexy" a lot, probably because everyone wears black. What do you find sexy?

Roman Polanski's movies. Italy. And music: Dead can Dance. Heat was a sexy movie. Gena Rowlands. When I was nine I went to a Doobie Brothers concert and Patrick Simmons ran by with his guitar. He was seating, and I can still smell the leather - that was sexy. John Malkovich, Sean Penn, Sam Shepard, and my boyfriend are sexy. You know who's sexy? Dennis Franz! He's got the shit going on. I like people who dare to look in your eyes and hold a glance. And my boyfriend says I have this thing about Marky Mark, which is ridiculous.

(holding a glance) Have you ever seen a casting couch?

No. In the first six months I was in L.A. I got a couple of movie roles, but about six times I lost a part to a star. I said to my manager, "Look, I don't wanna sit on my ass in L.A. and not do anything. I'd rather go to New York and do theater. So my manager said, "Just try TV." Right away, I got offered three things: a sitcom on Fox, a Western at CBS, and La Femme Nikita. The closest thing I had to a casting-couch experience was on the sitcom. I got a really weird vibe from the lead actor - I felt I'd have to feed his ego a lot. I'm a country girl from the bush - I can't deal with that. I wanna do the work, I don't want that bullshit. (A ten-minute digression about drama school ensues) Sorry. I've been up filming since 4 A.M. What was the question again?

I don't remember. I asked it such a long time ago.

Oh yeah - Pauly Shore. (laughs) I hope I never run into him! He's very cute, very charming. He just intimidated me.

(still holding the glance) What was it like being an Australian Army brat?

We had a houseboat, and we'd just go around Papua New Guinea. A lot of the local people hadn't seen many whites. None of them had television or radio. My brother and I were completely different from them, but we wanted to fit in, so we'd never wear shoes and were naked a lot. We'd take long walks through the rainforest and had lots of animals: a pet alligator, crocodiles, kangaroos. I remember it was the best time of my life. Then we came back to Australia and my mum and dad got divorced.

You were a model when you were younger, and you had anorexia and bulimia. Do you blame that on modeling?

It was a combination of things. My parents' divorce upset me a lot. Then I started modeling, went to Europe, and fell in love. When I came back to Sydney, I'd become a woman. All the boys would look at me, and I would look at the boys - or the girls. (laughs) Sydney was kind of wild. I was making more money than my whole family put together, but I was unhappy. Models are about being seen and not heard, and that's just not for me. It was a period when I didn't like myself much.

How wild was Sydney, exactly? Did you date girls?

(pauses) What will the network say? (laughs) I never dated girls. I never really dated anybody.

Since you're Australian, I'll remove the euphemism: Did you have sex with girls?

No. No, no, no. Kissed a couple. Good kissers, girls. It was always with my best friends, and we were all straight, completely straight. I'm very straight. I remember going out one evening, four boys and four girls. The guys were being really boring and macho, and I went down to the bathroom. Then my friend Kate came in, then Joey, and we all had a little kiss, and that was it. Then we went back out and stood around the boys, going "Ha-ha-ha, you have no idea."

Nikita uses a gun. What's your favorite way of killing a man?

Saying you can't have any. (laughs) If I were going to kill you, I'd freak out first. I'd get really loud and talk in your face, (shouting) and make you think I was completely insane, get you giggling and laughing, then go kaboom! An ex-marine I trained with said the basic way to kill a guy is to kick him in the balls first.

When should a man be slapped?

When he tries to hide that he's looking at another woman. just look, okay?

Is Nikita ever going to have sex with her brooding mentor, Michael?

Oh God, he's so frigid. I say to him on the set, "C'mon, Michael. When is Nikita gonna get a bit?" But I think Nikita is a virgin anyway, or maybe she's bi. She'd be so freaked out by sex, she'd come in two seconds like a sixteen-year-old boy. She just wants love. It's from all that time living on the streets because he mother never cared for her.

Are you going to stay on the show?

If I get a twelve-hour turnaround, so I can get some sleep, I don't know why I wouldn't stay. It's a very funny show - inadvertently. When I look at it I howl. At the same time, I'd really like to be doing more substantial work. I'd love to be sitting her talking with you if I'd done a play or something great. I don't really have a body of work. All the stuff I studied I can't use here. I came straight out of theater to this, where I just hit the mark and bark, basically. There's no rehearsal, no read-through; I meet the director the day of the shoot. The great moments of film are in the silences. But they use close-ups all the time, you can't see the body -

Oh, they do body-shots. Especially when you're wearing a low-cut dress.

'Allo, 'allo! We know what kind of body shots you're talking about. I know. I'm comfortable with my sexuality. Whatever. It's not like it used to be. Talk about sexy man: Montgomery Clift, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy. Now everything is pretty.

Except for Marky Mark.

Marky Mark is pretty too!

I just wanted to see if you'd stand up for him. Look at you, leaping to Marky Mark's defense.

Was I really? No, I was not!

Yes you were. You're boyfriend's right.

I'm so embarrassed! I don't even know the guy. Jesus.