THE NEXT MOVE

Lou Diamond Phillips, 25, who’s just shot to public attention as legendary Ritchie Valens in Columbia’s hugely publicized “La Bamba,” has just completed the leading role in “Dakota,” an independent feature directed by Fred Holms, in which he played an irresponsible biker facing hard life decisions while working on a Texas horse ranch.

Meanwhile, Phillips’ manager, Howard Goldberg, said he’s being inundated with offers for his client: “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing. The roles have been right across the board. Ethnics, non-ethnics, an offer so strange I can’t repeat it. But no musical roles, which means that people realize he’s an actor with a broad range.”

Phillips told us his “Dakota” role was one of the few he was offered pre-”La Bamba” in which the character’s ethnicity wasn’t specified. In the past year, he’s played an Latino cop on “Miami Vice” and an “East L.A. cholo “ in “Walking on Water,” which Edward James Olmos produced and stars in for PBS’ “American Playhouse,” to air next season.

Phillips, born in the Philippines and raised in Corpus Christi, Tex., is Filipino with Hawaiian and Japanese ancestry from his mother and Scotch-Irish and some Cherokee Indian on his father’s side. He said his dad named him after an American GI hero in the Philippines, Lou Diamond, who the actor thinks was Jewish: “I am the American melting pot. People aren’t quite sure what I am which allows me to take on whatever ethnicity is appropriate.”