Nothing to Hide

Moviegoers have seen a lot of Amanda Donohoe since she burst on the screen last year in Nicolas Roeg’s “Castaway.”

Playing a woman who accepts an invitation to spend a year on a remote desert island with a stranger, the 26-year-old British actress wore only her birthday suit for much of that film. Now, in Ken Russell’s “Lair of the White Worm,” she’s Lady Sylvia, the evil human embodiment of the title creature. The role again required a bit of physical abandon, with Donohoe cavorting in flimsy, kinky attire or clad solely in tribal body paint.

“Russell was looking for an actress without inhibitions to explore the character’s sexuality,” says Donohoe. “I guess that was pretty self-evident from my work in ‘Castaway.’ ”

“But,” she adds with a sly grin, “he also wanted a really good actress.”

Acting had been Donohoe’s secret passion. Initially, she’d worked in the fashion industry as a buyer, and briefly as a model. She found the latter work “brainless” and it was the prodding of a boyfriend that led her to enroll at London’s prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama.

“I was lumped with all the pretty, young actresses and feared I’d have a bright, brief career,” she says. “ ‘Castaway’ was a godsend for the challenge. It was a true baptism of fire and scary because I literally had nothing to hide behind.”

She says her experience on “Lair” was another broadening experience, calling Russell “a god” and an actor’s best friend and ally.

“Ken loves danger. One day he came in and played a tape for me and Hugh Grant (Lord D’Ampton in “Lair”) of a drawing room comedy with Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence. Afterwards, we just looked at him with blank faces and he said ‘That’s the way I want you to play your scenes.’ It was mad but inspired.”

Donohoe recently completed another film for Russell, “The Rainbow,” based on the D. H. Lawrence novel.

“I feel like a fraud because my work is my passion. On ‘Rainbow’ I’d look around and see Glenda Jackson and David Hemmings and wonder what right I had to be on the same set and the imp in me would say ‘because you’re special too.’ ”