Lawrence.com

Los Angeles — With everything she already has in the can, Liv Tyler could sit back and coast yet still have a high profile in movie theaters over the next three years.

First up, Tyler essentially plays three different roles as a femme fatale in the black comedy "One Night at McCool's." Then, for the next three Christmas holidays, she's playing the same role in three different movies � the trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," shot simultaneously from late 1999 through last December in New Zealand.

Tyler, who plays the elf Arwen, co-stars with Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Cate Blan-chett and Ian Holm.

Except for re-recording dialogue, Tyler and the rest of the cast have their work done on three major film releases through 2003.

"That is an incredible idea, for sure," Tyler said. "I keep thinking, well, I don't have to worry. I've got three years of movies done already.

"That is nice, but there's a part of me that's kind of anxious to get into another role, because 'Lord of the Rings' was so spread out for me. I didn't get that sense of working every day consistently for a period of time. And at the same time, I'm not the main character in those movies."

Getting sexy

Tyler, 23, has been a supporting or ensemble player in most of her best-known films, including "Armageddon," Tom Hanks' "That Thing You Do!" and Robert Altman's "Cookie's Fortune" and "Dr. T and the Women."

With "One Night at McCool's," Tyler is front and center, playing an opportunistic vixen who becomes the object of desire for every man she encounters. The story is told through the eyes of three different love interests (Matt Dillon, Paul Reiser and John Goodman), with each man imprinting Tyler's character Jewel with his own conception of the perfect woman.

For Dillon, she's a homebody girlfriend, for Reiser, she's a wanton tramp, for Goodman, she's an innocent angel.

Throughout, Tyler has to play the alluring bombshell, the most openly sexual role she's taken on since breaking into films such as "Heavy" and "Stealing Beauty" in her teens.

"I was a kid before in a lot of my films," said Tyler, stretched out on a sofa for an interview at the Four Seasons hotel. "I don't think people realized that I was only 16, 17, 18.

"This was definitely the first part where I had to be so physically aware and have people so aware of me physically. Maybe it's not hard for anybody else, but it is a bit for me. I mean I love my body and I feel very comfortable in my skin, but this was tough."

Tyler was particularly shy about shooting a lusty scene where she washes a car. To help inspire Tyler, director Harald Zwart showed her the seductive car-wash scene from "Cool Hand Luke."

"The woman is washing the car, and I thought it was an unbelievably sexy, beautiful scene, but I just thought, 'Oh, my God, how can I do that? How can I be that sexy?"' Tyler said.

"And also I was just self-conscious about it. I was basically going to be like a Playboy video for the crew guys for a couple of minutes."

To shoot the scene, Zwart cleared non-essential crew members off the set then "played loud music and let her do her thing," he said.

"It's a really sexually charged scene. But Liv is the reason why it is sexy and appealing without being trampy. She has so much class," Zwart said.

"She was stunning in a lot of films before, but I remember thinking this would be great if I could be the one who made that movie showing she could be really incredibly sultry and sexy. Because you knew it was all there, but she had some more introverted, innocent parts before this. And it was fun to be the one to draw that out of her."

Using what you have

Michael Douglas, the film's producer who co-stars as a bingo-playing hit man who also falls under Jewel's spell, said he told Tyler at the outset that she would have to go to extremes.

"I said, 'If this thing is going to work, you've got to go there. All these guys are perceiving you in different ways, so you've got to be the mother, the madonna, the whore. You've got to go all the way with it,"' Douglas said.

"I was so proud of her. ... In this kind of politically correct age, it was great to see her have fun with the part and exude that kind of sexuality and sense of comedy."