One of the perks for Joong-Hoon Park in filming a role as a villain in the romantic thriller The Truth About Charlie was that he could stroll around Paris like any other tourist.

In his native Korea, Park is a celebrity.

Not only is he Korea’s top actor, but he has a TV talk show and writes a weekly newspaper column, so he needs bodyguards whenever he’s filming or walking in public. 

He has 20 Korean best actor awards which he keeps in their own bookcase in his den.

Not bad for a guy who got his start in movies cleaning the offices of a producer and moving equipment on a film set.

“I was in college studying to be an actor when I auditioned for (Don Quixote on Asphalt). It was a terrible audition, so I pursued the director in hopes he would see me again. It was a leading role and, after doing odd jobs for weeks, he tested me again and I got the role.”

Park says he was surprised by his Charlie co-star Mark Wahlberg for two reasons.

“I’d seen him in Boogie Nights and The Perfect Storm. I didn’t realize he was such a big person. He doesn’t look that big on screen.”

Park was relieved to learn “Mark is a really sweet guy and a very committed actor. He’s very serious on the set, but he loves to party at night and he never seemed to be at a loss for a pretty girl or two when he went clubbing.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Kris Kringle's latest sleigh ride took off at the box office. 

``The Santa Clause 2,'' with Tim Allen returning as St. Nick in search of a wife, debuted as the No. 1 movie with $29 million in its opening weekend. 

The horror flick ``The Ring'' remained in second place with $18.1 million, while Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson's action comedy ``I Spy'' opened a weak third with $12.8 million. 

The top 20 movies at North American theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. and Nielsen EDI Inc. are: 

1. ``The Santa Clause 2,'' Disney, $29 million, 3,350 locations, $8,659 average, $29 million, one week. 

2. ``The Ring,'' DreamWorks, $18.1 million, 2,808 locations, $6,452 average, $64.5 million, three weeks. 

3. ``I Spy,'' Sony, $12.8 million, 3,182 locations, $4,008 average, $12.8 million, one week. 

4. ``Jackass: The Movie,'' Paramount, $12.7 million, 2,530 locations, $5,032 average, $42.1 million, two weeks. 

5. ``Ghost Ship,'' Warner Bros., $6.7 million, 2,787 locations, $2,388 average, $21.3 million, two weeks. 

6. ``My Big Fat Greek Wedding,'' IFC Films, $5.6 million, 1,977 locations, $2,844 average, $185.2 million, 29 weeks. 

7. ``Sweet Home Alabama,'' Disney, $4.6 million, 2,441 locations, $1,884 average, $113.4 million, six weeks. 

8. ``Punch-Drunk Love,'' Sony, $4 million, 1,252 locations, $3,198 average, $10.9 million, four weeks. 

9. ``Red Dragon,'' Universal, $2.7 million, 1,949 locations, $1,400 average, $89 million, five weeks. 

10. ``Brown Sugar,'' Fox Searchlight, $1.7 million, 854 locations, $1,958 average, $24.6 million, four weeks. 

11. ``Bowling for Columbine,'' MGM-UA, $1.54 million, 162 locations, $9,514 average, $4.5 million, four weeks. 

12. ``Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie,'' Artisan, $1.5 million, 1,604 locations, $931 average, $21.6 million, five weeks. 

13. ``Tuck Everlasting,'' Disney, $1.48 million, 1,237 locations, $1,193 average, $16.1 million, four weeks. 

14. ``Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones,'' Fox-IMAX, $1.4 million, 75 locations, $19,226 average, $1.4 million ($303.6 million total domestic gross), one week in large-format IMAX theaters. 

15. ``The Transporter,'' Fox, $1.3 million, 1,114 locations, $1,157 average, $23.6 million, four weeks. 

16. ``The Truth About Charlie,'' Universal, $1.26 million, 755 locations, $1,665 average, $4.2 million, two weeks. 

17. ``Barbershop,'' MGM, $1.16 million, 1,173 locations, $988 average, $72.7 million, eight weeks. 

18. ``The Tuxedo,'' DreamWorks, $1.15 million, 1,255 locations, $917 average, $48.2 million, six weeks. 

19. ``Frida,'' Miramax, $1 million, 47 locations, $21,295 average, $1.3 million, two weeks. 

20. ``Abandon,'' Paramount, $876,788, 1,731 locations, $507 average, $9.8 million, three weeks

HOLLYWOOD, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- The opening of Tim Allen's "The Santa Clause 2" easily led the nation's weekend box office with an estimated $29 million at 3,350 theaters during the Friday-Sunday period, studio sources said Sunday.

Disney's sequel, released eight years after "The Santa Clause" became a surprise hit with $144.8 million, performed in line with expectations as the studio took advantage of the lack of competition for family audiences. Allen's subsequent movies, including "For Richer or Poorer," "Joe Somebody," "Galaxy Quest" and "Big Trouble," have generated only moderate returns.

"The number is fairly decent considering that Tim Allen is not a huge draw," said movie industry analyst Arthur Rockwell of Rockwell Capital Management. Rockwell also said he endorsed Disney's decision to open a Christmas-themed movie on the day after Halloween since Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" will dominate the family sector when it opens Nov. 15. 

"People are already thinking about Christmas so it makes sense to get 'The Santa Clause 2' out there for two weeks before the Harry Potter movie opens," he added. 

DreamWorks' third weekend of horror-thriller "The Ring" finished a strong second with $18.5 million at 2,808 theaters, matching its second-weekend gross and pushing its 17-day total to nearly $65 million. "'The Ring' didn't start all that well but it's obviously caught on and become a bona fide hit," Rockwell said.

Sony's opening of action-comedy "I Spy," starring Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson, generated moderate interest in third with $14 million at 3,182 sites. The film, loosely based on the 1960s TV series, had attempted to take advantage of Murphy's drawing power in similar vehicles such as "Beverly Hills Cop.

"The number for 'I Spy' is a little disappointing for what's clearly a star-driven picture," Rockwell said.

Paramount's second weekend of "Jackass: The Movie" continued to draw surprisingly well with $13.1 million at 2,530 theaters to give the low-cost comedy $42.5 million in 10 days. "Jackass," which stunned Hollywood with a $22.8 million opening, declined 42 percent from its first Friday-Sunday.

Overall business was respectable with the first four movies taking in a combined $74.6 million and the top 10 totalling $100 million. However, those numbers were significantly behind the same weekend a year ago when "Monsters Inc." led with $62.6 million and the top 10 combined for $129.5 million.

The year-to-date total is nearing $7.4 billion, 12 percent ahead of the same point last year, and should maintain that pace given the expected strong openings of "Harry Potter" and MGM's James Bond movie "Die Another Day" on Nov. 22.

Warner Bros.' second weekend of "Ghost Ship" led the rest of of the pack in fifth with $6.6 million at 2,787 sites, followed by a pair of long-running comedy hits -- IFC's 29th weekend of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with $5.6 million at 1,977 theaters and Disney's sixth weekend of "Sweet Home Alabama" with $4.7 million at 2,441 locations.

"Wedding" lost only 9 percent of its audience from the previous weekend and is now the 50th highest domestic grosser behind "Gladiator" with $185.2 million. "Alabama," which dropped 29 percent, has totalled $113.5 million to tie for 192nd on the all-time list with "The Addams Family." 

Sony's fourth weekend of "Punch-Drunk Love" finished eighth with $4.2 million at 1,252 sites as the studio added 771 screens. Universal's fifth weekend of "Red Dragon followed with $2.7 million at 1,956 locations to hike its 31-day total to $89 million.

Fox Searchlight's fourth weekend of "Brown Sugar" rounded out the top 10 with $1.7 million at 855 theaters, edging United Artists' fourth weekend of Michael Moore's documentary "Bowling for Columbine" with $1.65 million at 162 screens and Artisan's fifth weekend of "Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie" with $1.5 million at 1,604 sites.

The limited opening of 20th Century Fox's Imax version of "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones" generated impressive returns in 13th place with $1.45 million at 58 Imax theaters. "Clones" had already topped $302 million domestically to rank as 13th on the all-time list.

Fox's fourth weekend of "The Transporter" followed with $1.25 million at 1,113 theaters, edging Universal's second weekend of "The Truth About Charlie" with a disappointing $1.2 million at 755 locations.

On the art-house circuit, Miramax's second weekend of "Frida" performed well with $1 million at 47 theaters while its Jerry Seinfeld documentary "Comedian" took in $715,000 at 225 locations. Artisan's second weekend of "Roger Dodger" grossed a solid $175,000 at 25 theaters. 

"The Santa Clause 2" will face competition next weekend from the openings of Universal's "8 Mile," a biography of rap star Eminem, and Warner's thriller "Femme Fatale," starring Rebecca Romijn-Stamos.

Industrywide, the weekend marked a big 19% downtick from the same frame a year earlier with $117 million in estimated total grosses, according to B.O. tracker Nielsen EDI. Year-ago frame boasted the $62.6 million bow of Disney/Pixar's "Monsters, Inc.," plus a $19.1 million opening for Sony's "The One." Year-to-date, 2002 is now 12% ahead of the same portion of last year with $7.39 billion in total grosses.

'Jackass' still has kick

Soph-sesher "Jackass the Movie" from Paramount/MTV Films posted a respectable 42% drop to finish fourth this weekend with an estimated $13.1 million. And IFC's "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" used a skinny 9% drop to $5.6 million to grab fifth place in its 29th weekend of release.

Sony/Revolution's platforming Adam Sandler starrer hit wide distribution for the first time and rung up $4.2 million from 1,252 theaters, or a middling $3,355 per venue. Distrib hopes black comedy, which finished at No. 8 on the frame, will sustain a slow-and-steady build from current $11.1 million cume.

Big "Santa 2" bow followed mediocre pre-release tracking surveys, proving once again that such data offers flimsy help in forecasting the actual performance of family films. The original "Santa" debuted seven years and 51 weeks ago with $19.3 million en route a $144.8 million domestic haul.

Michael Lembeck-helmed sequel returns its topliner to a winning track with a personal best for a live-action bow. Allen's last pic -- Sept. 11-impacted laffer "Big Trouble -- grossed just $7.3 million domestically, and last holiday season's "Joe Somebody" rung up only $22.8 million.

Teen auds see 'Santa'

Mouse House distrib topper Chuck Viane said pic's family support was supplemented by teen patronage, with 17% of "Santa 2" patrons aged 12-17.

"That suggests they saw the original and came back to see this picture," Viane observed. "They're comfortable with Tim Allen, who's great in the role."

With "I Spy," tracking data successfully sleuthed out a major culprit keeping action comedy from opening bigger: insufficient support among young males.

"We would have liked more," Sony distrib prexy Rory Bruer allowed.

"Spy," helmed by Betty Thomas ("Dr. Dolittle"), cost an estimated $70 million to produce.

"The Ring" managed its levitation act -- avoiding any drop whatsoever -- largely because Naomi Watts starrer ccontinues to play well with all demos. DreamWorks' distrib boss Jim Tharp figures pic, which sports an $48 million estimated negative cost, is now a lock to gross $100 mil domestically.

Sad 'Truth'

By contrast, Universal's "Charade" remake "The Truth About Charlie" is drawing few patrons of any kind. "Charlie" fled the top 10 in its soph sesh with just $1.2 million from 755 engagements, or a limp $1,615 per playdate with a 10-day cume of only $4.1 million.

Next weekend features the much-anticipated bow of Universal/Imagine's Eminem biopic "8 Mile." And Warner Bros. unspools Brian De Palma's erotic thriller "Femme Fatale" in more than 1,000 locations.

But though the two titles should combine for a good bit of B.O., frame nevertheless faces a tough comparison with a year earlier. That's when "Monsters" enjoyed a $45 million soph sesh, and "Shallow Hal" opened with another $22.5 mil

RULE NO. 1: STICK TO YOUR SINGING PERSONA Actors of Note

It's show biz's version of "The grass is always greener": Movie star Russell Crowe wants to be a rock star. Music star Ice Cube wants to make it in movies.

It's been that way since Enrico Caruso's movie debut in 1918, which is why all eyes will be on Eminem on Friday, when he does some Caruso-ing of his own in "8 Mile," a drama about a Detroit man who uses music to escape his troubled neighborhood. Rappers are the flavor of the year — Ja Rule, Eve, Ice Cube, Cam'ron and LL Cool J all have movies out now or coming soon — but Hollywood has always been willing to give musicians a shot at acting.

Many don't cut it, but a few of these hammy-come-latelies do rock. It helps if they follow some simple rules:

By playing, essentially, himself, Eminem is treading in the ruby footsteps of Judy Garland, one of the earliest singers-turned-movie-stars and probably the best. Beginning as a novelty act with her siblings, the Gumm Sisters, Garland hit it big acting in "The Wizard of Oz." Only 16 when "Wizard" was filmed, she had already established the persona that stuck throughout her life: the waif who retains her vulnerability in the face of tragedy.

Think of the moment when her voice breaks during "Over the Rainbow" as the template for Garland's career. The roles range from plucky big sister in "Meet Me in St. Louis" to show-biz survivor in "A Star Is Born" to Kitty in "Gay Paree," but they were always being pushed down, always picking themselves back up, just as Garland did. Even the role that seems most out of character, Garland's Oscar-nominated performance as a Holocaust survivor testifying as part of the "Judgment at Nuremberg," is informed by our knowledge that Garland herself was a victim, shattered and trying to keep it together.

Barbra Streisand did the same thing. Although she plays Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl," she really plays herself: the ugly duckling who triumphs because of her manic talent. Ultimately, Streisand became too confident of her talent, but all of her best work ("The Way We Were," "Up the Sandbox," "What's Up, Doc?") finds her playing outsiders who are desperate to get inside, even if it means losing what makes them special. (On the other hand, playing yourself won't work forever. Streisand was adorable as a gawky, 20-ish misfit in "Funny Girl," embarrassing as a gawky, 50-ish misfit in "The Mirror Has Two Faces").

Others who have followed the same path include Will Smith, whose self-deprecating likability is the key to his best music and acting; Courtney Love, who didn't need to do much research to play a hophead in "Man on the Moon"; Bette Midler, who, like Streisand, has an outsized personality that can't be sandwiched into real-sized roles; and Dolly Parton, who admits she can only play herself.

It's when these performers begin to dream of varied, Streep-like careers that they run into trouble. Diana Ross? Fabulous as a misbegotten singer ("Lady Sings the Blues"), awful in everything else. Whitney Houston? Disconcertingly believable as a mean, bland chanteuse but awkward when she tried to remember how real people behave ("The Preacher's Wife"). Olivia Newton-John? Cute playing a simp trying to make herself over into a hussy ("Grease") but dicey in any other context.

In this vein, a local boy provides a cautionary tale for Eminem. Like Eminem, Prince made a splash with an autobiographical movie that hewed closely to his own rags-to-riches-in-the-heartland bio. But when Prince tried to leverage that into films where he wasn't playing himself, he lost credibility in the movie and music worlds. In other words, Eminem: Rent "Under the Cherry Moon." Heed its lessons. There but for the grace of MGM go you.

RULE NO. 2: SUPPORTING ROLES ARE BETTER

Frank Sinatra won his Oscar for a subtle, subsidiary role in "From Here to Eternity." He did not win any Oscars for the blunt tough guys he played later in his career. Coincidence? No.

If a singer/actor wants to step outside the persona he projects in his music, the best way is to avoid the burden of propping up the whole movie. Think of Cher, in "Silkwood," who might not have been able to put her Bob Mackie past behind her if she had tried to play a lead but who established credibility as a capable actress by taking a quieter role, showing she could be believable as something other than a disco singer with her boobs hanging out.

It's easier for someone with a recognizable personality to disappear into smaller parts than large ones. Harry Connick Jr. has put together a nice little acting resume with varied roles in "Little Man Tate" and "Hope Floats." Same for Dwight Yoakam, whose odd looks have earned him psycho roles that are the acting opposite of his laid-back, rootsy singing. Often, rockers are used to pep up a dull project by adding a bit of strangeness, as Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Deborah Harry have often done in small parts.

Supporting roles are also a good way for singers to decide if they're any good, as Pink ("Rollerball"), Ja Rule (the upcoming "Half Past Dead"), Eve ("Barbershop"), Alanis Morissette ("Dogma"), Tina Turner ("Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome"), John Denver ("Oh, God!"), Elton John ("Tommy") and Reba McEntire ("Tremors") have discovered.

Intriguingly, many of these people, including Gloria Estefan ("Music of My Heart") and *NSYNC's Lance Bass ("On the Line"), apparently determine that movies aren't where their talents lie, since their first big movies are also their last big movies. Or maybe this determination is made for them, as it apparently has been for the difficult-to-cast-as-a-human Michael Jackson, still looking for a big-screen follow-up to his 1978 debut in "The Wiz." It's hard to imagine that his dream of starring as Edgar Allan Poe will be the ticket.

RULE NO. 3: DON'T TRY TO BE FUNNY. YOU AREN'T

The old show-biz adage that dying is easy, comedy is hard will ring painfully true for you if you've seen Madonna's comic roles. She has a natural, comic energy, which was amply on display when she played a version of herself in "Desperately Seeking Susan," but her strident attempts at wackiness in "Who's That Girl" and the more sophisticated clowning of "The Next Best Thing" both struck lead.

Apparently, this has something to do with self-consciousness. If these singer/actors feel comfortable in roles that suit them, they can be as effortlessly hilarious as Streisand was, inventing a whole new comic vocabulary in "Funny Girl." But if untrained actors try to suppress their natural instincts and invent a character that doesn't draw on their own innate timing and point of view, they can be as jarring as Madonna's English accent.

Elvis and Mark Wahlberg are two others whose vague, pleasant personalities work well in some settings ("Jailhouse Rock" for Elvis, "Boogie Nights" for Wahlberg) but sour if they try too hard to be funny. Elvis, in "Change of Habit," and Wahlberg, in "The Truth About Charlie," show that if you have try to act charming, you can't act charming.

Maybe the problem is that it's possible for, say, Joan Jett ("Light of Day") to pretend she's performing onstage or giving an interview, but something like telling a joke is too far outside her experience. Or maybe the problem is that if you really want to be an actor, you have to create a character who is not like yourself, whereas singers succeed when they have a strong sense of self. Or maybe it's just that most singers have no business acting in the first place.

The director Jonathan Demme has filled his Parisian thriller "The Truth About Charlie" with cameo appearances by many familiar faces from the French cinema, including the actors Anna Karina ("My Life to Live"), Magali Noël ("Rififi"), Charles Aznavour ("Shoot the Piano Player") and the director Agnès Varda ("The Gleaners and I").

But the pivotal role, that of the police commandant who helps and occasionally hinders Regina Lambert (Thandie Newton) in her attempt to discover who killed her shady husband, went to Christine Boisson, a stunning actress who came to attention in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1982 "Identification of a Woman." With her intriguing, multicultural good looks — she was born to a French father and a West Indian mother — and warm, smoky-voiced sensuality, she's continued to work in French films, though at 44 she's moving from leads to character parts.

"This isn't my first film in English," Ms. Boisson said by phone from Los Angeles, where she was working to publicize "Charlie," which opened last Friday nationwide. "I made a movie in Israel with Kelly McGillis," she continued, referring to Uri Barbash's 1987 English-language "Ha-Holmim" ("Unsettled Land"). "And I have played a lot of cops. But this is my first commandant."

"In France, you have only one woman doing this kind of work: she's the head of the Criminal Brigade, which is the aristocracy of the French police," Ms. Boisson said, referring to a real-life French police official. "I was inspired very much by her because I read quite a lot of things about her before. She's very good looking, you know — she looks a little like Catherine Deneuve. She's a tough woman but she's also very feminine."

As it was in the original 1963 "Charade," on which "Charlie" is based, the strategy of the remake is to spin a cloud of ambiguity around many of the principal characters. It's hard to know whose side many of them are on, including Mark Wahlberg's seemingly affable American, Tim Robbins's fussy embassy functionary and Ms. Boisson's simultaneously threatening and comforting character. 

"We never really know who she is," Ms. Boisson said of her character. "I wanted her to be very mysterious. For example, the first meeting I had with Jonathan, I was wearing a black leather glove, and he asked me to keep it for the commandant. In `Charade,' the French commissioner is very clichéd. He's very Frenchy, he talks like Maurice Chevalier. And that's just what I wanted to avoid. I didn't want to be clichéd at all."

LOS ANGELES -- It was a crazy idea, even for a filmmaker of Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme's eclectic accomplishments.

But Demme did not just remake Charade, the impossibly effervescent, romantic crime comedy that Stanley Donen perfected in 1963, with stars Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn at their most incomparable. In this version, called The Truth About Charlie, the director of The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia cast as stars the different-as-can-be team of Boogie Nights' Mark Wahlberg and Mission: Impossible 2's Thandie Newton. He also trades Charade's classic Hollywood high gloss for the jagged, free-form style of the French New Wave directors who were hitting their stride at the time Donen and company were shooting in Paris.

Different as he tried to make it, though, he admits that comparisons are inevitable.

"At one point, before the part was cast, somebody said, 'This is a great George Clooney movie,' " said Demme, boyishly trim and brimming with impish, movie-geek enthusiasm at the age of 58. "And you know what? I'd like to see that movie. But I didn't want to make that movie. I didn't want to get into that head-on a contest with this other picture, and try to duplicate Cary Grant and try to duplicate Audrey Hepburn."

Indeed, Demme refers to Wahlberg -- the Boston street punk turned rapper/underwear model Marky Mark turned respectable but hardly ultra-elegant movie star -- as the Anti-Cary Grant.

"Mark Wahlberg is not doing Cary Grant," the director said. "Before we started shooting, Mark's thing was like, 'Me, Cary Grant?' and I'd go, 'No! You not Cary Grant. You Joshua Peters, a character who shares the name of a character once played in a very different way, clearly Mark, than you're going to do it.'

"If I wanted to do a remake of a movie where you cast someone because you want to try to capture what the original actor did, I would pick a Steve McQueen movie to do with Mark Wahlberg."

Uh, that sounds like a directorial vote of confidence.

"Jonathan thought I was the right guy for the part, that I could bring something different and interesting to the role, so I said sure," said Wahlberg, 31, who nevertheless looks mighty dapper in a black Armani suit and pink silk tie. "I wasn't a huge fan of the original, though I thought it was a beautiful film. And I wasn't a huge fan of this script. I was a huge fan of Jonathan Demme's. I'd work with this guy in whatever role; I would play the guy on the bus who doesn't say anything.

"Jonathan cast me, obviously, to do the complete opposite of Cary Grant," said Wahlberg, who took a plane from the Hawaiian set of Planet of the Apes to Paris for Charlie (and whose next film is his third remake in a row, of the 1960s British caper The Italian Job).

Some think that Newton, at least, bears a few traces of the sophisticated gamine Hepburn. Maybe it's the British accent, although that's more pronounced in the younger, English-Zimbabwean actress than it was for the Dutch-Irish screen legend. Whatever it is, Newton, who played the title role in Demme's last film, Beloved, seems to have been his inspiration for the new project.

"The first time I ever saw Charade was at Jonathan's house," she said. "We watched the film, then he said, 'Don't you think that would make a great update?' And, yeah, I thought it would. Then he goes, 'With you in that part.' I said, 'Oh, please -- shut up.' Then, two years later, we were doing just that.

There were no concerns about living up to Hepburn's image, though.

"I read a new version, The Truth About Charlie," Newton said. "I didn't have time to reference back to the other one. And this was very different, different characters and so on. I take my job very seriously, and I don't tend to look outside of what I'm doing. I tend not to look at what other actors have done to inspire what I'm doing, either. I concentrate solely on the piece.

"But I was aware that I was playing Regina Lambert, not playing Audrey Hepburn playing Regina Lambert. Maybe I was in denial, because I was playing a role that she played."

Faithful in many ways to Peter Stone's Charade script, Charlie's screenplay -- by Demme and three credited co-writerrs, who brainstormed with Boogie writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson -- reimagines many key sequences along with the characters. It's still a romp in which a young wife returns from holiday to find her mysterious husband of a few months murdered. Three of his shady former associates, as well as a spooky U.S. embassy operative, want to know what she's done with the big bucks they believe the late Charlie had, but that she knows nothing about. Her only ally seems to be the smitten, sexy Joshua Peters, whom she met on vacation and who has conveniently followed her to Paris. But should she trust him?

Similarities end there, though. For example, Newton proves far less of a pushover than Hepburn was to Peters's charms, and it is her, in the buff, who has a shower scene in the new movie, unlike the fully clothed Grant in Charade. Dozens of other variations abound, which Demme feels will give fans of the original extra entertainment pleasure.

"I studied the original a lot, because I had to understand the story Charade perfectly," Demme said. "Also, there was much more material that I boosted from Peter Stone's spinoff novel than there was in the original movie. I felt that I really had to know exactly everything about this complicated story, so that I could then, with confidence, move away from it, and know more or less where I was going."

That new direction led right to . . . Shoot the Piano Player?

François Truffaut's 1960 classic, which was a seminal experience in the young Demme's movie-going life, is referenced several times throughout Charlie by footage from the film and the appearance of its star, Charles Aznavour, as himself crooning through some reality-breaking musical sequences. One of Truffaut-contemporary Jean-Luc Godard's favorite actresses, Anna Karina, also performs, as does the New Wave director Agnès Varda.

And like many of the New Wave's greatest filmmakers, Demme and his crack cinematographer Tak Fujimoto shot practically all of Charlie in quick, non-rehearsed, hand-held camera takes on the streets of Paris. Not employing a tripod, apparently, enables one to film without permits in the City of Light.

"This whole New Wave idea that you can mix styles and genres and tones, and that can be fun for an audience and it can bring another dimension of participation. That's what interested me and my collaborators on this movie," Demme said. "We all adored French films. What I see we did now was -- I wasn't consciously thinking this at the time -- to go there with this constant attitude of, 'Oh, and wouldn't it be great too. . . . ' Not, wouldn't it be great to salute, but wouldn't it be great to have a little of that magic."

For the younger, less-cineastic actors, however, New Wave methods could be disorienting.

"It was different," said Newton, who turns 30 next month. "Sometimes I wasn't even aware of what they were doing -- we were having to shoot quickly in daylight because, in 10 minutes, the train was going to come in and loads of people would show up. We were really relying on what was happening at the time in Paris. Jonathan didn't want to control crowds or do anything like that. But we had to rush through and do things so quickly that I kind of lost sight of what we just did, and was I good and did we get that?"

Wahlberg seems to have enjoyed the hip-shooting method more, with one caveat.

"I wasn't that familiar with the French New Wave," the actor said. "I had seen a bunch of their films and was intrigued by it. But the process was fantastic, just being able to jump out of a car with a hand-held camera. I loved that.

"The only thing that sucked about it was that you're working in France and you're required to drink a bottle of wine at lunch. So by the time you're in the second half of the day, you're a bit sluggish and it's hard to keep up with that sort of pace that they're used to."

Demme does not expect contemporary moviegoers to keep up with all of his nostalgic Gallic references.

"The film buff in me loves that some of my idols are in this picture," the director said. "But the rule was never to let the love of French movies become an obstacle to people in North American movie theatres who couldn't care less about the Nouvelle Vague [New Wave]. And why should they?"

Dunno. Maybe for the same reason folks still like Charade?

"I like remakes, and I don't think it's any more necessary to justify remaking a previously existing movie than it is to justify making a movie out of a book," Demme said. "It's fine, as long as the movie's good. It's only in moments like this, when someone asks me to somehow either justify or explain it, that there would be any sense of trepidation."