‘Valmont’s’ Marquise Wins Praise but Her Heart Is in Theater : Movies: Annette Bening will finish a new film and then return to the stage in New York.

“I was swept away from the moment she stepped into the room. And when she started reading, I knew she was kissed by God.”

Those words were spoken with hushed reverence by director Milos Forman (“Amadeus”) when asked why he cast stage actress Annette Bening as the Marquise de Merteuil in his new film “Valmont.” The story is freely adapted from the 175 love letters that make up the 18th-Century French novel “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” by Choderlos de Laclos.

“I was surprised I had never seen her before,” Forman said over the phone recently from Hamburg, West Germany, where “Valmont” has just opened. “Where did she come from? I was told she did regional theater in San Francisco and New York. I sensed right away she had both star quality and the qualities of a character actress at the same time.”

When the lushly produced “Valmont” opened domestically last month, it was inevitably--and mostly unfavorably--compared to director Stephen Frears’ 1988 film “Dangerous Liaisons,” a darker version of the same story. Frears’ film was a heavy Oscar contender, receiving seven nominations, including Best Picture, and winning three awards.

“I don’t read reviews. I just don’t read them,” Bening said. She looked out at the ocean from her hotel room in Santa Monica, where the 31-year-old actress is staying while shooting a new movie called “The Grifters”--which is being directed, ironically, by Frears.

“I got trained that way in the theater,” she continued. “You always hear. You always know basically what the reviews say, if they’re negative or positive. But if you don’t have the phrases in your head, you don’t have to carry that with you. When something is in print and you’ve seen it in print, it just looks like the truth.”

Bening doesn’t have too much to worry about when looking over reviews of her performance. Rolling Stone called her “magnetic in her first major film role.” Newsweek praised the actress but panned the film, saying that “Bening’s beauty and style floated in a void.” The Times said the reward of “Valmont” is “Bening’s dazzling Marquise, red-haired and purring.”

But the New York Times charged that Bening’s “smooth, overripe delivery of every line exemplifies (“Valmont’s”) troubling habit of trivializing its characters and playing to the bleacher seats.”

“You know what’s interesting?” Bening mused. “In the New York Times Book Review, who reviews the books? Usually other authors and writers. So why don’t we, in our newspapers, have film makers review each other’s films. Why is that, I wonder? That would be a good idea. Film makers have the insight and the love of what they do. Do critics love what they do?”

To make it tough on the newcomer (Bening’s only other movie was “The Great Outdoors”), her assignment in “Valmont” was to play the same cool seductress portrayed by Glenn Close, who was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award in “Liaisons.” Did Bening find people trying to pit her up against Close?

“Yeah. Yeah,” Bening said, shaking her head in frustration. “I just say, ‘Look, I tried to do my job. I tried to act the role as best I could.’ My job, that’s my job. If they want to compare and all of that, then what can I do? I can’t control that. The only thing I can control is what I do, which is to act.”

Bening has acted on the stage for most of her life. She was born in Topeka, Kan., and reared in San Diego, where she performed with the San Diego Repertory Theatre. At San Francisco State University, Bening received national acting honors and, after graduation, was accepted by The American Conservatory Theatre.

“Having a background in theater really does help you in movies,” Bening said, “because it gives you a perspective about what’s important and what’s not important. I have a lot of friends who work in regional resident theaters around the country and have no desire to come to Los Angeles or New York, because they are fed by what they do. I know that world, and I know what it’s like. That world is there for me, so I don’t have to run scared in Hollywood.”

Bening moved to New York with her husband about three years ago. She appeared off and on Broadway in “Coastal Disturbances,” for which she received a Tony nomination and won the Clarence Derwent Award. Bening says she went to see a lot of movies in New York and soon became intrigued by the bold visual elements of film, as opposed to the theater where the dramatic power of the medium lies in language.

While acting off-Broadway last year, Bening auditioned for the role of the Marquise. She did not audition for Frears’ “Liaisons,” even though the two films were casting in New York at roughly the same time.

When asked why he chose Bening, Forman said, “You have basically two kinds of actors, instinctive and method. Instinctive actors do things out of their gut without really realizing or knowing how good or bad they are. Method actors do meticulous work on the character, and every line and movement is perfectly prepared and calculated. The results can be marvelous in both cases.

“Annette is one of those rare actresses right in the middle. Both methods work for her. She goes on guts, but has something in her mind that allows her to judge her performance intellectually. Jack Nicholson has the same thing. The really great actors do.”

By the time the cast and crew for “Valmont” was ready to leave for Paris, Frears’ “Liaisons” troupe had completed shooting and was just returning to America. In the six months it took to shoot “Valmont,” Frears edited “Liaisons” and brought it to the screen. Forman still hasn’t seen Frears’ version. He says he won’t even rent it on videocassette until “Valmont” is finished with its worldwide run so he can avoid making comparisons.

But Bening saw “Liaisons” last year when it was still in theaters. “It was really the oddest sensation to be sitting there, having just finished the same story,” she said. “They were so different, that’s what I was struck by. I thought it was incredible, and kind of beautiful, that a story can be told in so many ways.”

Now, as is often the case after a successful screen debut, the film offers are turning from a trickle to a steady pour. But after “The Grifters,” Bening is taking take time out in New York to return to her roots on the hardwood stage in a new play called “Elliot Loves,” directed by Mike Nichols.

“I’ll never leave the theater. That’s where an actor belongs,” Bening said. “Film is the director’s medium. Theater is the actor’s medium. Once you’ve had a shot of that, you just can’t wait to get the taste back.”