VANITIES

LYNN COLLINS

AGE AND OCCUPATION: 25, actor. PROVENANCE: Houston. HOO-HA: After auditioning for a minor role in director Michael Radford's adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, Collins landed the female lead (Portia) when Al Pacino (who plays Shylock) gave her the nod. "They showed my audition tape to Al, and he approved me. I broke out into hives and cried for five hours." GOLDEN ROLE: Up next is the Merchant Ivory-produced Searching for Sara. "My character falls in love with an Indian man and ends up sort of transforming herself into woman." CULTURE CLASH: She logged quiti few frequent-flier miles growing up in Singapore, and then my parents came back to Texas for four years, we moved back to Singapore, and came back to Texas when I was 10." RED-STATE BLUES: "Nobody really understood my style in Texas. People were like, 'Oh, her clothes don't match.' It was so right-wing and conservative—I actually don't know if I ever recovered." KRISTA SMITH

This month WHAT IF... YOUR MOTHER WERE APPOINTED TO THE SUPREME COURT?

Plus: GEORGE WAYNE GRILLS VICTORIA GOTTI

FOR DETAILS, SEE CREDITS PAGE