PRINCESS OF DENMARK

With her goddess-like proportions and general man-eater vibe, Danish actress Connie Nielsen, who stars in Ridley Scott's forthcoming Roman Empire epic, Gladiator, may look like a comic-book Amazon fantasy. Indeed, you may remember her from Devil's Advocate (1997), in which she played the Devil's really hot daughter, or as the Teutonic junkie in Permanent Midnight (1998), in which she had the singular line "I'm being fucked by a Jew!" But the life of the actress, who also stars this spring in Brian DePalma's astronaut picture, Mission to Mars, has had the texture and romance of a Tolstoy novel.

Raised in a tiny fishing community on the northern tip of Denmark, Nielsen never missed the John Wayne or Fred AstaireGinger Rogers movie playing at the village theater. "Every Sunday at four, I'd be there." Her great-grandparents owned cinemas. Her grandmother made stage costumes. Her mother was an actress in the local revue, and Nielsen first acted at age 15, alongside her. From there, it was on to France and Italy, where she studied acting, opera, Greek tragedy, and the classics. As for Scott, "I think he took me because I know a lot about the period." Plus, those legs couldn't have hurt.

EVGENIA PERETZ