HOT FACES: KIEFER SUTHERLAND AND MEG RYAN

At first glance, Meg Ryan looks like a woman you’ve seen around--maybe dancing at a local disco or waitressing at a roadside cafe. She’s slim, blond and has the kind of deep-blue eyes that promise heartaches on hot summer nights.

The 25-year-old actress has deceptive looks and an apparent ability to slip between drama and comedy. She has the teasing sex appeal of Melanie Griffith and the charm of a young Goldie Hawn, but her secret is not something taught in acting school.

“All you have to do is have Tom Cruise comfort you and Dennis Quaid pass through your organs,” jokes Ryan of her “Top Gun” and “Innerspace” co-stars, respectively. Ryan’s three scenes as pilot Anthony Edwards’ devoted wife in “Top Gun” put a face to her resume within casting circles. Now her role as a feisty journalist whose miniaturized boyfriend (Quaid) ends up inside her body in “Innerspace” may make Ryan a household name.

“Nobody knows if they’re truly capable of carrying a film until they get the chance. ‘Innerspace’ could be the big commercial hit I need to get recognition as a female lead.” (The movie grossed $20 million in its first three weeks of release.)

She admits it’s a challenge to make an impression as an actress when “you’re primarily decoration for the lead actors rather than a motivating force. Though ‘Innerspace’ is very funny, I think the only impression people will have of me is that, for a reporter, I looked strange in a leather skirt.”

Her future films are more impressive than the past pictures of most of her peers. The soft-spoken, introspective actress becomes a foul-mouthed extrovert in “The Promised Land,” an independent feature slated for November that Robert Redford executive produced (co-starring with fellow Hot Face Kiefer Sutherland). And she is a giddy college student who helps her professor Quaid (this time playing twice her age) track down a killer in “D.O.A.,” which finished shooting last month in Austin, Tex.

On deck are “Clean and Sober,” which casts her as an alcoholic opposite Michael Keaton, and “Rain Man,” with Dustin Hoffman and Cruise.

Ryan recoils at any question dealing with self-examination, almost as if any answer may not adequately articulate her feelings. “I’m not really solidified as a human being yet so I’m not sure what I have going for me as an actress. I’m not pretty or glamorous. I think my main appeal is my sense of humor. On screen I think people may feel I’m a lot of fun to be with,” she says candidly, sipping glasses of iced and hot tea.

“I’m interested in a lot of different things than this so-called sexy image (that) I have would indicate. I regularly go to political functions that Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden have so I can learn more about current political problems. I used to be a journalism major at New York University because I wanted to be a news reporter or television producer of a news show. I only became an actress because my mother was a casting agent in New York, and she sent me on an audition in hopes I’d get a job so I’d have spending money in college.”

At 18, Ryan made her film debut as Candice Bergen’s daughter in “Rich and Famous.” “I had roughly 10 lines--which I would repeat constantly each night with my prayers. There was an actor’s strike so it took five months for my scenes to be completed. When I went to Los Angeles to finish the film, I had never even been on an airplane. I was intimidated by everyone then. If you look at the film, you’ll see I’m shaking in every scene.”

She then became a regular on “As the World Turns” for two years. “I learned everything you can imagine about camera angles and setups doing the soap. I worked solidly every day for two years, 14 hours a day, and still attended college. I quickly gained a love for acting and a respect for it as a craft.”

Ryan pauses, shaking her head like someone trying to explain a bad dream. “Soap operas teach young actors many interesting things--like not to ask about their character. I had an impotent husband who faked being a paraplegic, then stood up whenever I left the room. Another time I did a breakfast scene with an actor who had just punched a wall and his hand had blood on it. I had to ignore the blood and ask if he wanted catsup. I asked why I was falling in love with so many characters and was told, ‘Betsey (her character’s name), we just need to keep the story moving.’ ”