MOVIES : Ho. Ho. Ho. Ho. It’s Sir Santa : Oscar-winning director and British cinema eminence Richard Attenborough thought his acting days were over. But after ‘Jurassic Park’ came an offer to play St. Nick. Hey, he already had the beard.

Talk about the comeback kid.

In the late 1970s, Richard Attenborough, a veteran of some 60 films, retreated from his acting career to concentrate on full-time direct ing. It turned out to be a sound decision, and Attenborough scored some notable successes, including an Oscar for “Gandhi” (1982), which also won for best film.

It came as something of a surprise, therefore, when Attenborough stepped in front of the cameras again to play John Hammond, the crazily ambitious entrepreneur with a wild notion about a theme park filled with dinosaurs, in Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park.”

The role looked like a one-shot deal. But Attenborough, now 71, is back as an actor once more, this time as a leading man.

He plays Kriss Kringle, a sweet-natured old fellow who might just be the real Santa Claus, in 20th Century Fox’s remake of the beloved 1947 film “Miracle on 34th Street,” which opens Friday.

So his acting career seems to have been seriously reactivated.

“Well, you’re very generous,” says Attenborough, in his customary teasing, bantering tone. “What actually happened with ‘Miracle’ was that someone saw me in ‘Jurassic Park’ and said we want someone with a white beard--how about him? I’ve got a round face, white hair, a white beard. I can wear half-moon glasses and waddle a little, cope with a cane, raise my hat.

“I was quite sure in my own mind that after ‘Jurassic Park,’ I’d be calling it a day (as an actor). That was just a one-off which gave me the chance to work with Steven. The old adage about acting--that it’s 98% energy and 2% talent--is true, you know. And the energy’s a little harder to summon as you get (older).”

For all this Attenborough hugely enjoyed his stint as Kriss Kringle/Santa Claus in “Miracle,” which was shot largely in producer John Hughes’ Chicago studio facility, with some exterior shots in Manhattan.

“It was an irresistible offer,” Attenborough says of the chance to star in “Miracle.” “He’s a classic figure, and it was a ravishing performance by Edmund Gwenn in the original film. That brought along a little pressure in having to follow it.

“But making the film was too good to be true, really--you’re driving down Central Park West on the back of a sled with thousands and thousands of people, particularly kids, lining the street, cheering, blowing you kisses and shouting ‘Merry Christmas.’ And this was in the middle of April.

“It all worked fine until we passed one apartment block. I was trying to keep up my concentration as Santa Claus, aware there were both long and close lenses on me--and there, right in front of the apartment block, is Michael Douglas, and he’s thumbing his nose at me,” he says of the actor, who starred in his film “A Chorus Line.” Attenborough, of course, cracked up, which necessitated re-shooting the scene.

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We have arranged to meet at a TV studio in North London where Attenborough has been taping publicity interviews for “Miracle.” He emerges bright-eyed, smiling his trademark smile (gap-toothed, mouth wide open) and as usual exuding bonhomie: “Nice to see you again, old dear,” he says. (Everyone to Attenborough is “darling,” “angel,” “dear” or “honey,” quite irrespective of gender or even familiarity.)

Now we must conduct an interview in the back seat of his Rolls-Royce as it purrs slowly through evening rush-hour traffic, taking us to Richmond, a West London neighborhood where, as it happens, both of us live.

In the driver’s seat is Attenborough’s chauffeur; beside him is his collaborator Diana Hawkins, who has been associate producer on his recent movies.

Sinking into his leather seat, Attenborough quickly disclosed his early doubts about taking the part in “Miracle on 34th Street”: “There was a question about whether a film like this, a semi-classic, ought to be remade at all. After John Hughes asked me if I would like to do it, I rang Steven (Spielberg) and said, ‘I’m apprehensive.’

“Over the years Steven and I had talked on occasion about the principle of remakes. I think we both agreed that this was an exception.”

How come?

“Because the excitement and satisfaction and joy that emanates from its subject matter is worth preserving. Now in this instance, that means keeping it alive, not as a museum piece or a thing you dust off each year. Children of 5 or 10 or 15 now look at the (original) film with a total lack of suspension of disbelief. It’s black and white, the clothes don’t look the same, the cars don’t look the same. Whereas if you could maintain the magic and overall feeling of the subject matter, then to give longer life to it is perhaps justified.”

Remaking “Miracle on 34th Street,” he says, was not like reviving “Citizen Kane,” “Les Enfants du Paradis” or “The Big Country”--”doing remakes of classics like that wouldn’t make sense.”

In the end, Attenborough thinks, Hughes pulled off a tough task: “He’s given an edge to Kringle. In Edmund Gwenn’s character, there wasn’t any threat or latent violence. It was much simpler--you either believed him as Santa or you didn’t.”

Attenborough is also pleased with a scene in which Kringle is briefly incarcerated in an asylum: “It gives it a darker edge, that bit of credibility. And in the courtroom scene, I hope there’s a couple of minutes where you think: ‘The old boy’s gone potty, he really is a goner.’ ”

Attenborough also had a personal agenda for lending his support to an entertainment such as “Miracle on 34th Street”:

“It’s my concern that movies that are granted any stature whatever nowadays tend to be imbued with cynicism, with brutalities. The pornography of violence and all that. Well, fine. I don’t say for one second they shouldn’t be made.

“But for an audience, particularly an upcoming (young) audience, to assume that’s what movies are, that’s the staple diet and if you go to movies that’s what you’re going to encounter, that’s another thing. So the one thing you don’t do is go en famille . You have to examine carefully what you take your family to. And the phrase ‘family movie’ has terrible connotations. You’re yawning before you start.

“But I do think there’s room for--what else do you call it--family entertainment. Films where you go in and won’t be affronted or horrified, because there are other elements: fantasy, magic, love, jollity, kindliness, warmth, concern of one human being for another. Say what you will about ‘Miracle on 34th Street,’ I can take my grandchildren to it. If I had a maiden aunt I could take her, or my ma and pa if they were alive. And you go en famille . I think there’s room for that.

“I read a review which described the new Tarantino picture (“Pulp Fiction”) and thought, ‘Well, I’m sorry, I really don’t want to have to go and face up to that.’ ”

It is hard to convey to Americans the sort of prominence and in fluence Richard Attenborough holds in British society. He was knighted by the queen in 1976, and is still widely known as Sir Richard, but two years ago he was made a peer of the realm; his official title is now Lord Attenborough, and he is entitled to sit in Parliament in the House of Lords, the upper legislative chamber.

He has been famous in Britain since his film debut in 1942, when he played a small but key role in Noel Coward’s “In Which We Serve,” a war drama in which, perhaps fortunately for him, he portrayed a coward; because of it he would be offered meaty character parts for years to come.

He became a big British star in 1947, the same year the original “Miracle on 34th Street” was released. Attenborough starred as Pinky, the hateful, amoral, baby-faced young gangster in “Brighton Rock,” adapted by Graham Greene and Terence Rattigan from Greene’s novel. It’s bizarre that an actor who could play a young character with such credible menace has transmuted into the lovable Kriss Kringle through the years. “Yes,” Attenborough drawls, “it’s a very long way from Pinky, isn’t it?”

Through the years his roles tended to become more benign, though he did play a murderer to extraordinary effect in “10 Rillington Place” in 1971. Often, though, Attenborough was cast as a well-spoken, decent sort of English chap, often in military uniform. As his career blossomed, so did that of his brother David, the naturalist who presents wildlife shows on television.

Attenborough made his directing debut in 1969 with “Oh! What a Lovely War” and in the years since has had his successes--among them “Gandhi” and last year’s “Shadowlands.” He is a strong storyteller who prefers nonfiction to fiction and has often tackled films about people who have changed the lives of others and asserted human dignity.

Some critics have charged that his work--such as “Cry Freedom,” a 1987 account of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, and his 1992 “Chaplin,” which bombed at the box office--can be overblown and overlong. Still his films, liberal in their leanings, stand for a certain old-fashioned decency; he is unapologetic about that.

Attenborough is gregarious, a man with outspoken views on many aspects of public policy. He is a pillar of the British film industry and in the 1980s led a deputation of filmmakers to 10 Downing St. to discuss industry problems with then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. When she inquired plaintively why she knew nothing of these problems, Attenborough famously replied: “Darling, you never asked.” He is or was chairman, president or patron of 30 organizations, including UNICEF, the British Film Institute, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and Britain’s Channel 4 television.

Even at 71 he is the busiest and most energetic person most people in Britain could name. For two days before this conversation, he had been in Israel; the next day he was to embark on a three-week visit to Africa under the auspices of UNICEF, taking in six countries, including Rwanda.

Then there are his forthcoming projects. “We’ve got four, haven’t we, darling?” he asks Hawkins, who nods in agreement. “We have to make our minds up about which one to start when we’ve finished doing the publicity for ‘Miracle’ just before Christmas.”

He likes a fantasy-comedy called “In Seventh Heaven,” by first-time screenwriter Ken Pearce: “It’s about these little people, sort of like leprechauns, who were sent to America 600 years ago because of a curse and now live in an apartment block between the ceilings and floors. It’s as funny a script as I’ve read in my life. I read it in the hotel restaurant in Chicago while I was doing Kringle and had to stop. I was an embarrassment to all concerned.”

Then there is an adventure tale, with two male characters in the Mexican desert toward the end of the 19th Century. Attenborough also has a story, “Gray Owl,” now being scripted by William Nicholson (“Shadowlands”), about a real Canadian Indian who was, as he says, “the first environmentalist--a villain, a sham, but passionate about the preservation of the environment. Dave (Attenborough) and I saw him back in 1934 or 1935, actually lecturing with lantern slides. He was known as Gray Owl, though his Indian name was--what was it, darling?--He Who Flies by Night.”

Lastly, Attenborough has been trying for seven years to get a green light from a studio for a film about American revolutionary and writer Thomas Paine.

“It’ll be another bloody ‘Gandhi,’ ” he grumbles, noting that the Oscar winner took him two decades to get made. He tried to persuade studios that two films about Paine--one about his life in America, the other about his career in France--could be made for slightly more than the cost of one, by shooting them at the same time on the same sets. His plan was to have the two films open on consecutive days.

“But I’ve been told if the first one flops, you lose money on the second too,” he says gloomily. “I suppose I see the sense in that. So now (playwright) Trevor Griffiths is rewriting like crazy and trying to come up with a picture of about 3 1/4 hours--which is quite fashionable now. So Tom Paine’s always ready, as I tell everyone.”

In fact, his standing in Hollywood is high; “Shadowlands,” his last film, cost about $18 million but has grossed about $65 million worldwide.

“That helps the Tom Paine project,” Attenborough says. “Because ‘Chaplin’ was such a disaster in the States, I might have struggled to get money again if ‘Shadowlands’ had been a disaster too.”

With all the activity he has lined up for himself, it doesn’t sound as though Attenborough will be continuing his revived acting career. “That’s right,” he says. “Now I’ve done ‘Miracle,’ I’m not going to act again.

“The problem is, you see,” he adds, with the air of a man in a hurry, “I’ve just got so many subjects I want to direct.”