HOT FACES: ROBERT DOWNEY JR., ELIZABETH PENA

The initial impression you get from talking with Elizabeth Pena is that she’s extremely ambitious. The chain-smoking 25-year-old Cuban-born actress comes across in a luncheon interview as an entertainer who regards sincerity and charm as mere props in the process of getting a role.

But whatever method she’s using, it’s producing immediate results. She plays the angry girlfriend of ‘50s rocker Richie Valens’ half-brother in the movie “La Bamba” (which opened Friday), is the female lead in Steven Spielberg’s “Batteries Not Included” (for December) and stars this September as a Salvadoran nanny who cares for the two children of a widowed architect in the ABC-TV series “I Married Dora.”

For someone who moved to Los Angeles from New York two years ago with $2,000 and no agent, Pena scored quickly in the Hollywood shuffle for acting jobs. “It’s hard to get to see important people here unless you have an agent, and the only way for an outsider to get an agent is to marry one. So I sent out my own resumes and made my own calls.”

Then she got a big break. She read in Drama-Logue, a casting magazine for actors, that director Paul Mazursky was making “Down and Out In Beverly Hills,” a satire about rich white people and their non-white servants.

“I figured there had to be a part for me,” she recalls, “so I called the production office every day, and a sympathetic secretary who took all my calls got me brought in (for an audition). After I read with everybody and their mother, (star) Richard Dreyfuss convinced Paul to let me play the role of his horny maid.”

The film’s success allowed Pena to leap past assistant casting directors. “After ‘Down and Out,’ the casting directors would see me personally and grin because they liked the movie. The hard part then became to convince them that I wasn’t just the ‘Down and Out’ character and should be allowed to read for any roles in my age group,” says Pena.

“Even with the theater work I’ve done in New York and the film work here, I still can’t audition for roles written for an Irish or WASP woman. There’s a lot of roles I’m not even considered for. Often I’ve gotten into the door and convinced a casting agent I could play those parts and they’ve been rewritten for me, but I don’t have big breasts or a wholesome look, so sometimes I’m unfortunately considered a risk for a role.”

Pena’s aggressive and seductive personality disguises an offbeat reason why she acts. “I’m not very good at communicating what I feel in real life. I guess as a way of copping out at times I think I can hide behind a character and not truly express who I am. I want people to like me for myself, but I don’t want them to leave a movie thinking they know the person I am from the role I’m playing,” she says with a mysterious smile.

In “La Bamba,” Pena portrays the hard-edged Rosie. The character has few scenes that show charm or compassion, and Pena says she had a difficult time playing the morose woman. “Cliches exist in real life so I tried to play the person on a moment-to-moment basis,” explains Pena of her creative conflict.

“I couldn’t make her charming just so I might come across better to the audience. That would be false to the character and might hurt the reality of the movie.”

In “Batteries Not Included,” Pena is cast as a self-absorbed woman whose New York apartment is invaded by alien creatures--whose presence wasn’t noted in the lease.

“It wasn’t the role of a lifetime, but it was great to work with special effects. Try talking to a blank canvas for six months and be attacked by creatures (that) the special effects people hadn’t even created yet. It’s fun,” she claims with a roll of her eyes.

Pena turned down Robert Redford’s personal plea to star in his forthcoming film, “The Milagro Beanfield War.”

“I didn’t want to play another Mexican,” she says. “I did ‘Batteries’ instead because I thought that film would be a big hit. Redford was nice on the phone especially since I hung up on him the first time he phoned because I thought it wasn’t him. I also turned down Sally Field’s offer to star with her in her next picture ‘Surrender.’ I liked her, but again I thought being in a Spielberg film was more important to my career.”

Asked if she fears any negative response to turning down those roles, Pena shrugs her shoulders. “Listen, you always think you’ll never work again once your last job is over. I’m in this for the long run and if I have to prove myself again and again I’ll do it.”

She uses her cigarette to punctuate her thought. “I’m not special as an actress because I believe all people are special. In 10 years from now I’ll probably have two kids and still be acting. I’ve got my foot in the door now and I’m not going to let them close it on me.”