Q&A; : ‘I’m Just . . . Best Friend-ish’ : Q&A; with Rosie O’Donnell: Madonna’s pal in ‘League’ and a ‘Seattle’ sidekick to Meg Ryan, she’ll be yabba-dabba-doing as Betty next year in the live-action ‘Flintstones.’

Not withstanding a comment or two from the presidential debates, Rosie O’Donnell uttered the most-used sound bite of 1992. In “A League of Their Own,” she got to recite to Madonna the hall-of-fame line “You think there’s a man in this country who ain’t seen your bosoms?,” the petulant New Yawk delivery of which almost made O’Donnell a star all by itself.

In case O’Donnell is still etched onto your mind as primarily a stand-up comic, consider that since “League” she’s suddenly become one of the busiest actresses in the movies. She plays sidekick to Meg Ryan in the romantic comedy “Sleepless in Seattle,” which opens today, and is third-billed in the buddy sequel “Stakeout 2,” due in July. She has cameos upcoming in Carl Reiner’s “Fatal Instinct” and James Brooks’ “I’ll Do Anything.” But the potential franchise role that could make her a truly rich woman is her part as Betty Rubble in Amblin Entertainment’s live-action “Flintstones” flick, shooting now and scheduled for next year.

O’Donnell, 31, lunched with us last week at one of her favorite Studio City delis before she had to head to the studio and get “Betty-cized” for the day. With or without a bone in her hair, her Everypal appeal is undiminished.

Question: Someone said you seemed like a strong candidate to be the Thelma Ritter of the ‘90s.

Answer: Ha. Someone else told me Eve Arden. Hell, I’ll take it, it’s a compliment. I’ll be the best friend forever. It’s fine with me. I mean, in my first movie I’m best friends with Madonna; my second movie, I’m best friends with Meg Ryan. That’s not a bad career right there.

Q: What’s your Betty Rubble like in “The Flintstones”?

A: She’s also the proverbial best friend--Ethel to Wilma’s Lucy.

Q: Is this a part you lusted after growing up?

A: My agent called and said they were interested in me playing Betty Rubble, and I laughed so hard. I thought, are you kidding me? She’s this tiny little petite thing, and I’m not exactly similar to the cartoon rendering in my own physicality. I didn’t see it at first. Then when I went in and read it and everyone laughed, I thought, OK. But I didn’t lust after it my whole life, no. I never thought there’d be a Flintstones film, to tell you the truth. I was interested in playing Scooby Doo at one point, but I don’t know if that’s still in development.

Q: Speaking of TV shows getting turned into movies, weren’t you announced as making a “Car 54, Where Are You” feature?

A: Yeah, that was the first film I did, before “A League of Their Own,” and it was never released. And I don’t think it ever will be, although there’s rumors that Orion is gonna awaken from the dead and release 20 films during the summer. It may come out on video.

Q: What do you think people see in you?

A: I don’t know, I think I’m just very . . . best friend-ish. I think everybody thinks I’m the kind of girl they’d like to go have a beer with. Madonna provokes people in every way, forces them to look at who they are and what they’re about and their sexuality and their feelings about interracial things. That’s her essence--she’s provocative. I’m really not. I’m kind of like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she’s some wild, exotic food. It’s hard to know what your own appeal is. I think it’s relatability, if I was to sum it up in a word.

Q: Not to stereotype too much, but “Sleepless in Seattle” definitely bears a heavily female stamp.

A: I agree, 100%. But I do believe that when women take their boyfriends and husbands and brothers and fathers, that they’ll enjoy it and relate to it too, because it’s a universal theme. But some films are women’s films--like “Rambling Rose,” “Paradise,” both with a definite woman’s feel, both with women directors. Same with this.

Then there are some films that are totally male films with a big stamp, like “Field of Dreams.” I did not get that movie, I did not relate to that movie, I didn’t understand the appeal of that movie. And 200 men were in the middle of downtown Manhattan sobbing. “If you build it, he will come.” What the hell was that about?

Q: The running joke in “Seattle” is that you and Meg Ryan cry just thinking about the old Cary Grant-Deborah Kerr movie “An Affair to Remember.” Does that work for you in real life too?

A: No way. Are you kidding me? First of all, she gets hit by a cab, she should’ve been in the emergency room and said, “Send someone to the Empire State Building, tell him I got hit and to come over to the hospital right now.” You know, he comes in at the end of the movie and she’s not even like “Ah, you know what happened? I can’t get up off the couch, I’m crippled!” If I had seen it when I was younger and more impressionable and not quite so cynical, I probably would have been moved. But being 30 when I saw it, it didn’t get me.

Q: Just about everything you do is very straight-faced. You’re not the kind of comic who cracks a smile at your own jokes. You carry that to an extreme in “Sleepless in Seattle,” where you’re so deadpan you’re beyond droll.

A: Well, Nora (director Nora Ephron) kept saying, “Bring it down, bring it down.” And also I learned from “League of Their Own,” which really was the first film I’d done that I got to see. When we were filming that, I’d watch Geena Davis and think to myself, “She’s not acting enough. She really needs to act more. She’s hardly doing anything.” I didn’t tell her that, because she had an Academy Award, but in my own head, I was thinking that. Then I saw “League,” and I saw what she did, and I saw how my character was so big and so loud. But it worked in an ensemble, because everybody has a note in an ensemble and then Penny plays the piano and picks little bits of the notes when she needs them, right?

Well, in a two- or four-character movie, it’s smaller, and I tried to remember Geena and how she brought everything down and internalized everything. That’s really what I tried to do in this film, because there was no room for that sort of bigness.

Q: But underplaying might not have been your natural instinct?

A: No. If I had not done “League,” I would’ve pushed much more. But also it was Nora’s direction. If I had a thick New York accent, she’d say, “You graduated with a master’s from the Columbia School of Journalism, you don’t speak like you’re from the street.” She really helped me.

Because I noticed in my stand-up act, or when I do “Arsenio,” my accent is much thicker. It’s not on purpose, it’s out of nerves. When I get nervous and I push, it becomes much more streety, much more Fonzie and Sylvester Stallone-ish. She wouldn’t let that happen, for which I’m glad.

Q: Do you ever do stand-up work anymore?

A: I do gigs if somebody I like is working in Vegas and they want me to open for them. I love working in Vegas; a lot of comics hate it, I love it. And I do it all the time for benefits. But I’m doing jokes that I’ve been doing for 15 years, and the audience can mouth them along with me. Well, it’s time to get a new act, and if I don’t have the time to work on it, it’s really unfair of me to go tour around the country and do the same old jokes that I’ve been doing forever.

Q: What’s next on the docket?

A: I’m auditioning for “Grease,” which Tommy Tune is directing on Broadway. I’ve always loved musical theater; that’s always been my passion and my goal. So I hope that “I’ll Do Anything” does well just so that there can be more musicals made. Because when I was a kid, that’s what I lived for, all of ‘em--”Sound of Music,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “Mary Poppins.” . . . So if I get “Grease” I’ll go to New York in January.

Q: That would be a pretty serious time commitment, wouldn’t it?

A: Six or nine months . . . Just in time to start “Flintstones II.”

Q: Apparently you’re predicting a yabba-dabba-blockbuster.

A: Without a doubt. Huge. A hundred thousand people have been to see the sets since the sets were erected at Vasquez Rocks in Agua Dulce. A hundred thousand people, just to look at the sets. And I think everybody’s familiar with it and it’s such a kick that it’ll be a big movie.

Q: Most important, do you have a cut of the Betty Rubble dolls?

A: I certainly do--coming soon to a Happy Meal near you.