FOREST WHITAKER / ACTOR-DIRECTOR

If “Hope Floats,” with Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr., is as successful as “Waiting to Exhale,” Forest Whitaker, who directed both, could be crowned king of female-appeal films. But Whitaker, 37, has other things on his mind, including a return to acting (“Phenomenon” and “Species” are among his most recent appearances) and producing (he’s just done an ABC-TV pilot, “Black Jaq,” about a female spy in New Orleans).

CHICK FLICKS: “Both ‘Exhale’ and ‘Hope Floats’ are about people overcoming problems, trying to regain belief in themselves. Those are themes I’ll always address, whether in a male- or female-driven film.”

FLOATING HOPE: “I think people want to believe in romance, dreams and hope--some sort of spirituality inside.”

ON HIS AGENDA: “I’m probably going to take a break from directing and act for a year or two. I’m going to do one with Jim Jarmusch, ‘Ghost Dog.’ I hadn’t met Jim before but wanted to work with him, and he wrote a great script.”

FAR EAST: “The only script I’m considering to direct now is ‘Anna and the King,’ a beautiful script. I loved the musical [“The King and I”] as a kid. Lawrence Bender, who produced ‘Pulp Fiction,’ is doing it. Got to talk to my wife--’OK if I go to China for two years?’ ”

FREEDOM ENVY: “Working with [Jarmusch] is for me a way to get back to just a singular vision guiding a film. I try to have that, but there are still all these considerations when working with a big studio. At the end, I get to do what I want, but the process of getting there is sometimes debilitating. Jim just does what he wants.”

DARK SIDE OF SUCCESS: “I met [“The Full Monty” director Peter Cattaneo] by accident. I told him he was the golden boy. He said he’d been running all over town meeting all these people and would rather be the silver boy. I understand, all that pressure. If it clouds your being able to see, to have a point of view, it’s too much.”

RISING STARS: “The little girl in ‘Hope Floats,’ Mae Whitman, is going to be a star. And after this, Harry Connick is going to be huge. He’s really talented, and really open.”

FILM NOTES: “Music’s important to me in films. This film has different beats, some more conscious, some dreamlike, some riding in fantasy. [Soundtrack producer] Don Was took artists from different areas--Bob Seger, Garth Brooks, American voice music and country artists with emotional voices--and grabbed all those things.”