Profile : Breaking Away : TRACY POLLAN FINDS A PART THAT’S HER DEPARTURE: A CRAFTY KILLER

Tracy Pollan never considered herself a chameleon of an actress.

“I’ve played a lot of similar characters and characters who are similar to myself,” she acknowledges.

So when she was given the opportunity to play a master-of-disguises murderer, she took it.

“It was scary, but the thing that really attracted me ultimately was that it was so different than anything I’ve done,” she says of her starring role in the CBS movie “Dying to Love You,” which airs Tuesday.

Pollan, who has starred in other made-for-TV movies (“Fine Things”) as well as features (“Stranger Among Us”), says she found the script the most interesting she’d read in awhile.

Based on a true story, “Dying to Love You” is about a lonely man (Tim Matheson) who places a personals ad answered by the woman of his intense sexual dreams. The woman, played by Pollan, turns out to be a felon with multiple identities. When he finds a briefcase filled with fake IDs, he notifies authorities. But she continues to manipulate him from prison and play havoc with his personal life.

Pollan, who had previously played more demure roles, reveled in the part.

“I like that the character was a motivated force and she wasn’t reactive,” she says. “She was extremely crafty. Straight from beginning to end, she knew what she wanted.”

It was hard for veteran television director Robert Iscove (“Shattered Dreams” “Breaking the Silence”) to imagine the reserved, elegant Pollan in such a role.

“There absolutely was apprehension,” Iscove says about Pollan’s casting. “I didn’t know that she could do it.”

He needn’t have worried, he says.

“She is going to astound everyone. She was wonderful and has the range to do all of it--she’s sexy, strange, businesslike, warm, ruthless, cold and absolutely convincing every step of the way.”

Both Pollan and Iscove see “Dying to Love You” as an allegory for the ‘90s.

“People are definitely going to think twice before they answer a personals ad,” Pollan says emphatically. “You have to be careful in so many ways. You don’t just rush into a relationship with someone you don’t know for physical and emotional reasons.”

Pollan knows whereof she speaks.

“Those people do exist and I know firsthand that it isn’t that outrageous that something like this would happen,” she says.

From 1988 to ‘89, she and her husband, actor Michael J. Fox, were stalked by a woman who sent them nearly 6,000 letters. When the woman was arrested, police found more than a thousand letters ready to be sent. Fox eventually testified against the woman, who was found guilty of terrorist threats.

Pollan says that they are very careful now and she knows not to put herself in a vulnerable position.

“We have a security person who goes through our things,” she says. “We take precautions.”

Pollan and Fox spend most of their time in New England, where it “feels more like home than here,” she says of Los Angeles. They try not to work at the same time, so that at least one can be a full-time parent to their 3 1/2-year-old son, Sam.

“It’s really a juggle,” Pollan says of trying to balance motherhood, marriage and acting. When she works, it’s usually from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. “The good thing is, when I’m not working I have (several) months off.”

But after a few months, Pollan’s ready to get back to work. “Obviously, it’s really important to me to keep doing both things. I start getting crazy not working.”

She enjoys switching from television movies, with intensive three- to four-week shoots, to feature films, where there are longer rehearsal times and shooting schedules.

Although Pollan appreciates the time that features allow actors to fully develop a character, she acknowledges that roles for women are generally better in television.

And she and Fox would like to do some theater together, “if the right project comes along.”

In the meantime, she and Fox enjoy being together with Sam.

“I really love being at home, cooking and gardening,” she says. “The same is true for Michael. We are so starved for that when we are working. We never, ever go out. We’re real homebodies.”

“Dying to Love You” airs Tuesday 9-11 p.m. CBS.