Actress Keener smolders onscreen The Los Angeles Times Joan Crawford had it in spades. Linda Fiorentino made it her calling card. And now Catherine Keener's gift for playing smart, sexy and delightfully nasty screen roles is gaining her a reputation in Hollywood. In the surprise indie hit "Being John Malkovich," Keener delivers one verbal blow after another - usually directed at her pathetic admirer Craig, played by John Cusack. Her character, Maxine, an attractive, aloof, neurotic ice queen, taunts Craig with lines such as, "Even if you had me, you wouldn't know what to do with me." Her sexy self-assurance at once terrifies and attracts the men around her. "Malkovich" director Spike Jonze immediately grasped that quality in Keener when he picked her to play Maxine. In a way, it was counterintuitive casting: The usually sexy Cameron Diaz plays Craig's dishwater-boring wife, Lotte, in the movie. After more than a dozen actresses were auditioned for the role, Keener clinched it while reading one particularly snappy exchange at a bar between Maxine and Craig. "She did it so casually and so unforced," Jonze said. "It was sort of the quintessential Maxine with a zippy line. She had the ability to play Maxine in a way that she would say the harshest things to somebody, but you almost didn't know you got stung until afterward. She didn't do it venomously, which is more interesting than playing those lines as a villain.'' It's a performance that's already winning Keener honors: The New York Film Critics Circle last month named her best supporting actress, and she received a Golden Globe nomination for supporting actress as well. To Keener, "Maxine was like an arsonist setting fires here and there and leaving other people to clean them up. That's probably why I kept trying to (get close to) Lotte, because I kept thinking, `This is not me! It's not me!' ...I'm not the person that can do all of those things!'' For avid independent moviegoers, Keener is a familiar sight. She has appeared in more than a dozen low-budget films, showing a tremendous range. In "Simpatico,'' which opened in Los Angeles for Oscar consideration last month, she plays a not especially bright supermarket clerk who gets caught in a bizarre triangle with Jeff Bridges and Nick Nolte. In real life, Keener is nothing like Maxine. There is nothing manipulative or hard-edged about her. In fact, at a recent interview, it was hard to believe that the nervous, ponytailed young woman wearing an oversize, moth-eaten green sweater could be the same razor-edged woman she plays on screen. But many of Keener's film roles have not been as biting as Maxine, from Anne Heche's sweet, lonely, single friend in 1996's "Walking and Talking'' to George Clooney's wacky, chain-smoking ex-girlfriend two years later in "Out of Sight.'' Her roster of performances is what convinced Jonze that she could play the character. Keener said she fell into acting quite by accident. She grew up in Miami, the eldest of five children. She attended Wheaton College in Norton, M.A. Unable to land a spot in a photography class, her teacher suggested she enroll in an acting class. She performed in theater throughout college, with her first performance in a production of Wendy Wasserstein's "Uncommon Women and Others.'' But upon graduation, she moved to New York and worked as an assistant to a casting director. She never thought of herself as an actress - until her boss told her she had no talent for office work. "She said to me, `You're not so good as a secretary. Is there anything else you would like to do?' '' she recalled. She moved to Los Angeles and began taking acting classes. It was here she met her husband, actor Dermot Mulroney, the man she calls her "coach.'' She was cast in bit roles until "Johnny Suede,'' a 1991 film directed by Tom DiCillo and starring the then-little-known Brad Pitt. Her role as the neurotic New York girlfriend opposite Pitt's flaky character opened doors for her. It also marked the beginning of her collaboration with DiCillo, who went on to direct her in three more movies, including 1995's "Living in Oblivion,'' in which she starred opposite her husband and Steve Buscemi. "Johnny Suede'' was "the first time that made me feel connected to the material,'' Keener said. "Working with Tom DiCillo feels like one big chunk of my career.'' Though she is very pleased with the way her career is going and admits that more scripts are landing on her doorstep, she is philosophical about success in Hollywood. In the end, it really is her family life that keeps her grounded and gives her perspective, she said. "Even if you have an innate ability or talent, you need to learn a bunch of other things to deal with the business,'' she said. "You have to find a balance between taking yourself seriously enough and not taking yourself too seriously. When people are scrutinizing how you look and what you sound like or how big or small you are, you have to know that it's not personal.'' Courtesy of USA Films Swift, seductive Catherine Keener stars as Maxine in "Being John Malkovich." Courtesy of USA Films Maxine seduces the bewildered John Malkovich (Malkovich) in "Being John Malkovich." Originally on page 8A in the 1-26-2000 issue of the Daily.