Profile : The Berenger Trail : ACTOR PICKS A MOVIE BY ITS STORY, NOT THE DIRECTOR

Tom Berenger has worked with some heavyweight directors, including Richard Brooks, Oliver Stone, Ridley Scott and Hector Babenco.

But he never chooses a film project because of the director. The story is his main concern.

“Like Hamlet says, ‘the play’s the thing,”’ Berenger quips. “Then I look at the character. And then the director.”

It was definitely the offbeat narrative of his latest movie, “The Avenging Angel,” premiering Sunday on TNT, that caught Berenger’s attention.

“Avenging Angel,” based on the novel by Gary Stewart, finds Berenger portraying Miles Utley, a Mormon orphan living in Salt Lake City circa 1860s. Utley is a member of the Danites, also know as the Avenging Angels, who functioned as protectors of the Mormon church and its hierarchy. Utley has been groomed from childhood to shadow leader Brigham Young (Charlton Heston) and other church authorities.

When he thwarts an attempt on Young’s life by an ex-communicated Mormon, the trail he follows leads to a major conspiracy within the church. James Coburn also stars in the Western thriller as Utley’s mentor and friend, Porter Rockwell. Though Utley is a fictional character, Rockwell was a real member of the Avenging Angels.

The religious aspect of the film, Berenger says, “is what I thought made it different than other Westerns. Otherwise, it would just be a Western. God knows, we have seen enough of those. I was kind of intrigued. And then Dennis Nemec did the script. It is a killer script--real economical and real right. He cut out a lot of the fat. “

Berenger, 44, knew a “little bit” about the Mormon religion before he began the film. “I had been in Utah a couple of times,” he says, puffing on a cigarette in his hotel suite at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. Berenger makes sure to blow the smoke away from his visitor’s face.

“I had done this Western ‘Butch and Sundance: The Early Years,’ and Butch Cassidy was a Mormon,” Berenger explains. “Of course, he left home at about 13. I kind of did a little research about it. Then I hit the books again when I did this. There is actually quite a bit of information (about the Mormons) because the Mormons are really big on history.”

Though Berenger serves as co-producer of “Avenging Angel,” he is uncertain if he’ll ever try his hand at directing. “I don’t know,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “My partner wants me to and I go, ‘Why? It never was my dream, so why do it?’

“Sometimes you get on a project before the director is hired,” he adds. “It seems like every script I get the writer wants to be the director. If they are good at what they do, why do they want to (direct)?’ It almost seems masochistic.”

With most first-time directors, Berenger says, from his own experience, “The actors have to go through the nightmare of watching them learn. If you have an experienced director, he knows how to deal with the suits. He can shoot fast enough and he doesn’t get hammered on every little thing. They have a lot more authority and they just get it done.”

One writer-turned-director who knew what he wanted was Stone, who directed Berenger to a best supporting actor Oscar nomination in 1986’s multiple Oscar-winning “Platoon.”

“He was like boom, boom, boom,” Berenger recalls with a smile. “He would shoot so fast that we had time to go back and reshoot something. And he still works fast. I went and did a cameo for him on ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ and he just hammered the crew to move.”

Berenger made his film debut in 1977’s “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” in which he played the handsome stranger who murders Diane Keaton after she picks him up in a bar.

“You know,” he says, “it is almost the only film where I can’t remember a line. I totally blacked it out of my mind afterward because there was absolutely no redeeming qualities about the guy, I guess. I remember women in New York saying, ‘I am never going to see that again.’ Richard Gere and I both started in that film. But people got us both mixed up. Maybe because it was lit darkly.”

He has nothing but praise for “Goodbar’s” director, Richard Brooks.

‘I saw him, I guess, in 1990, about two years before he died,” Berenger recalls with affection. “I went over to his house and had coffee with him. He had a steel-trap mind. I really liked that guy. He was a real character to work with.”

Berenger’s next film, Savoy Pictures’ “The Last of the Dogmen,” with Barbara Hershey, is scheduled for a release later this year. And he’s currently looking for that next great story.

“If I had a year off, it would be OK,” says Berenger, who lives in South Carolina with his family when he’s not on a film’s location.

“It would probably be good for me. I would be totally caught up with my life and get everything done. One year, I did four movies back to back. I was a zombie. In that time there were also casting sessions, homework and research, sound sessions and publicity. It became this overlapping madness. I was physically gone.”

“The Avenging Angel” premieres Sunday at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. on TNT. It also airs Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.; Wednesday at 5 p.m.; Saturday at 10 a.m.; Jan. 29 at 8 a.m. and Jan. 30 at 5 p.m.