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"Tell me about it, stud."

No, actress Samantha Mathis doesn't want to hear about my day. She's merely quoting Olivia Newton-John, who uttered the above come-on to John Travolta in Grease, a film Mathis saw "like 20 times in the theater" when she was a child. The reason Mathis is channeling Olivia -- not that she needs one -- is that the 25-year-old star of Pump Up The Volume, This Is My Life, and Little Women recently finished working with John Travolta, a.k.a. Danny Zuko, in John Woo's Broken Arrow.

"We were in Montana," Mathis recalls wistfully, "and John and Christian [Slater] and I threw a party for the crew. We got a karaoke machine and they put on 'You're The One That I Want,' and the next thing I know, John drops to his knees and sings, 'I got chills, they're multiplyin', and I went with it. He picked me up, he spun me around, we did the whole thing. It was the most unbelievable completion of a childhood dream ever. I thought, Now I can die a happy woman, I've danced with John Travolta."

Broken Arrow is one of four new films Mathis has either in theaters now, or coming your way soon. How To Make An American Quilt, An American President, and Jack and Sarah complete the roster. Mathis allows that concentrating on work was one of the ways she dealt, and continues to deal, with the tragic loss of her lover River Phoenix, whom she was with the night he died. When she talks about him, her eyes well with tears.

On a happier note, Mathis is only too happy to leap to her feet and demonstrate on me the way she poked her finger into Travolta's chest and strutted him across the room while lip-synching the words, "You better shape up."

"So you did the same choreography from the movie?" I say breathlessly after our brief publicist's-office production number.

"Yeah, except that my left buttock sort of peeked out," she says proudly. "That was a little extra flourish."

DENNIS HENSLEY: That was so cool of Travolta to do that.

SAMANTHA MATHIS: Yeah, he's very sweet. Some people might resist talking about the old days, but as soon as I said I was a huge fan, he was into it with me for at least half and hour. It was great.

So what happens in Broken Arrow?

John and Christian play government pilots, and they're carrying bombs on their B-3 bomber, and John basically ejects Christian out of the plane because he's going to steal the bombs and hold the government ransom. I play a park ranger who finds Christian, and together we save the universe.

Is this one of those movies like Speed there you wear the same outfit through the whole movie?

Yes. One outfit for four months. I wanted to burn it afterwards. Although it's very flattering. It's like khaki by Armani.

I know you're friends with Sandra Bullock. Did she give you any action-adventure pointers?

Yes. Her advice was, before you do an action scene, start humming the James Bond theme, and it will get you into the right mode. So they'd be screaming, "OK, we're rolling!" And Christian and I would start going, "da-da-da-daaah." I kicked ass. I really surprised myself. We have this one scene where a helicopter's flying above my head, and I'm running, and there are explosions going off around me.

It seems to me that in a shot like that, there are so many other things that can go wrong that your performance had better not suck. Do you find that's a lot of pressure?

Well, it's not that hard to act terrified when you've got a helicopter three feet above your head.

You worked with Christian Slater a few years ago on Pump Up The Volume. How was this time different?

We haven't really changed all that much. I think we've both grown up a lot, but I didn't find him to be affected by the business in any sort of negative, jaded way.

Weren't you two romantically involved during Pump?

Yeah. For a minute.

Did you get together before or after the love scene?

I was towards the end of filming. That was our first kiss in the film.

Do you wonder if Broken Arrow will do for your career what Speed did for Sandra Bullock's?

I've always taken everything with a grain of salt and expect the worst, but hope for the best. I did Super Mario Brothers, which everyone was very excited about when it was made, then it did horribly.

You can't even utter the title without grimacing. Does it hurt to say it?

(Laughs) It does. It's painful.

Did you think it was going to be good when you were making it?

I thought it could be, but it rapidly deteriorated. I've learned that what has to matter most is the moment when I'm working, because the rest of it is some intangible thing that I can't take home with me. But I can take home with me knowing that I did a good job and that I had fun.

I saw How To Make An American Quilt recently and I liked the way that, even though the film was romantic, the relationships and the people in them were flawed.

And the women and men are equally flawed. It by no means says that the men are the bad guys.

How would you describe your character?

Sophia to me is the most tragic character in the film because she lives out a self-fulfilling prophecy. She lives in such fear of what will happen to her that she creates it. She's so afraid that her husband will leave her, and he does.

Sophia does some lovely dives in the film. Did you have to train for those?

Yeah. They set me up with a man named Sven. Sven the svimmer.

Like there weren't enough disgustingly attractive guys associated with that movie already?

I know. Everyone in it's a babe.

I got the feeling halfway through that if one of the women had flashbacks to an ugly guy, the other quilters would have protested.

[Director] Jocelyn [Moorehouse] has great taste. It was a babe-fest.

So that was you doing the dives in the film?

No. I just went into it. But I had to jump off the high dive, which was horrifying. I could see why my character loved doing it because it was quite a rush, defiantly a way to live on the edge for a girl in the '40s.

You recently finished Rob Reiner's An American President. What's that about?

It's "How does a President Date?" He's a single man and he falls for this woman lobbyist, and it's how the president date in this day and age with the Hard Copys and the gossip, and just being the President and trying to order some flowers and not wanting his personal aid to do it.

And you play the President's personal aid?

Right. I just felt like Michael Douglas' shadow. We engaged once in a while, but I'm always just standing behind him. The film, to me, was an opportunity to work with Rob Reiner and a great ensemble cast. I've always been fascinated with politics, so I was very excited to do something that was set in the White House. Actually, they sent me to the White House before we started and I spent a day following Bill around.

Did you get to talk to him?

I never actually met him. I was sort of timid to get in there. It started with walking into his outer office and seeing him in his little sweat suit coming back form a run. It was the day the Japanese Prime Minister was there so I followed them around doing their official meet and greets and photo ops in the Rose Garden, and it was amazing.

Did you vote for Clinton?

Yes.

Will you vote for him again?

Yes.

What was your impressions about how much of his day was spent dealing with important issues and how much was spent posing for pictures and such.

He's very actively involved, from what I can tell. Previous Presidents certainly were not as much. Rob Reiner said that he went to the White House and saw Ronald Reagan's appointment book, and it was like "10:00 a.m., in the office, 10:00 to 11:30. phone calls, 12:30 to 1:30, lunch, 1:30 to 3:00, nap." like a sort of horrifyingly empty schedule.

Three o'clock to 4:00, watch Facts of Life.

Exactly.

What surprised you the most about your White House visit?

That there are a lot of young people working there. It's really sort of a hip crowd. I had a different picture of what people would wear. Everyone was wearing black, and I asked someone about it and they said that all these kids are broke. They love what they do, but they don't make any money, so black is the easiest thing to own. So I tried to come back and say, "Listen, I think I could wear a black suit," and they're like, "No, it's a different cabinet."

So Michael Douglas pays better than Bill Clinton?

Yeah.

And finally, you have the English film, Jack and Sarah. What's your character?

I'm the kooky American girl who no one likes except Jack and his baby. I become the baby's nanny.

What was it like working with kids?

It was a true pleasure to play with them, and when they started to cry it was nice to go, "Mother, take the baby."

Jack and Sarah came at a very hard time in your life.

It was about three months after River had died. That was one aspect of why I wanted to do the film, just to get out of the country. I had just enough of seeing him on every magazine and hearing the horrible, horrible things that the press would say, and being constantly reminded. It's hard enough to go through it in such a public way and to then see people do such despicable things made it all the harder. So it was a little easier to be in London and to disappear.

How long has it been, two years?

It was two years on Halloween.

How has going through that changed the way you approach your own life?

Well, it certainly sent me into a pretty dark place for a while, but I think I have emerged from it a much stronger person. River really embraced life in a beautiful way, obviously in another way that ended up not so well. He was incredibly open to experiences and to life, and I keep that with me. I think I've also just really figured out what's important to me in my life and what isn't worth wasting time on.

What is important?

My friends, my family. The simple things in life have become very important to me. I cherish my friends. I have a beautiful group of friends. It's the old sort of cliche of realizing that life is short, and like the character of Sophia, you need to get over the fear of whatever you have because it will ultimately hold you back, and there's no time to waste. I became really introspective for a while, and really thought about what it is I'm doing, what's important to me, and how I want to live my life.

What sort of things did you decide were not important?

Gosh, high-maintenance people in my life. And just to be really conscious of how I choose to spend my time. If I don't want to do something, I won't do it just because I feel I have to. To take care of myself.

What's next for you?

I don't know. It's been such a busy year for me, with all these films coming out. I've just moved. I'm really happy being in my new home and making a life for myself, and between that and all the press that I have to do. I'm in no rush right now.

Is it hard to do press knowing that the interviewers will want to talk about River?

Yeah. Well, my publicists are really good at sheltering me from all of that, and I chose not to talk about it for quite some time. I needed some distance to go throught some of that before I could talk about it. But now I feel like I've gotten to a place where I'm more at peace and understanding it a little better. If I feel like talking about it, I will, and if I don't, I won't, and I have no qualms about it.

Are you seeing anyone?

Nope. I've been single for quite a while now, and it has its good points and its bad points. I'm happy. I'm much more focused on getting my personal life together and working.

You've lived in L.A. since you were five. Do you like it here?

It's a love-hate thing. It's my home. I know this city like the back of my hand, but it is so much a one-horse town. It is so much about the industry, and I love getting out of here. I think it's really easy to lose perspective on life. There's so much more to the world going on out there, and you forget when you're here.

Do you feel like you grew up too fast?

Yeah. I mean, ultimatly I try not to have regrets, because it doesn't serve you. But certainly I grew up faster here. Just my family life, and then acting at 16 and all those sort of [things] contributed to me becoming-well, trying to become-an adult before my time.

Did you rebel?

In my own little responsible way, yeah. I never got into trouble. I was always a good girl, but I did have my periods of getting a little wild. I feel like now, I've become much younger. It's funny. Perhaps that's something else I learned from this experience. I'ver completely embraced the nerd in me.