For the last 20 years, at a top-secret laboratory deep in the Australian outback, a team of scientists has been turning out actors and actresses. An early product, Paul Hogan, shot to fame with Crocodile Dundee, but his popularity soon waned. In retrospect, he seemed almost too Australian, with his crude (croid) accent and constant talk of "shrimps on the barbie." And so it was back to the drawing board.

Test tubes bubbled and smoked. Out popped Nicole Kidman, who wowed international audiences and, for a while, Tom Cruise. Not content to rest on their laurels, the team followed up by hatching Naomi Watts, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, and Heath Ledger.

Soon, however, Crowe began touring with his band and getting tough with hotel clerks. The scientists had to come up with something, fast, before their funding was taken away. And so here she is, Jacinda Barrett. Early test runs (key roles in Urban Legends: Final Cut and The Human Stain) have been promising, but 2006 is her do-or-die year.

Barrett will first make a splash (har-har) in Poseidon, Wolfgang Petersen's sure-to-be-socko remake of The Poseidon Adventure. Then she'll show her comedic side in School for Scoundrels, a romp co-starring Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Stiller. In the fall, it's on to more serious fare, including The Last Kiss, from a script by current Oscar king Paul Haggis (Crash).

The daughter of a Brisbane firefighter, Barrett was a teen model before chucking the runway life to attend the British American Drama Academy in England. She now lives in Los Angeles, not far from the Warner Bros, lot, where the bulk of Poseidon was filmed. Even with her recent rise, she has yet to experience any good Hollywood sleaze. "Maybe I've got to start going to more parties," she says.