A Quieter Strength

Linda Hamilton would like the world to know that she is not an amazon, though she played one to such good effect in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

“My greatest strength became my huge Achilles’ heel,” she complains. “OK, I’ve done this really invincible character, and I liked what I did with my body and the feeling of power it gave me. But people think I’m going to go in, chew up the scenery and eat them alive. I’m not. I want to be adorable now.”

That’s why she’s starring in “Sex & Mrs. X,” airing on Lifetime tonight at 9. She gets to wear stunning black dresses, flirt with younger men and learn that it’s OK to be smart and sexy. Hamilton plays an investigative journalist assigned to interview a French marriage-broker (Jacqueline Bisset) who trains beautiful young women in the art of seduction. She turns down the job because, to her, Madame Simone sounds like a high-class madame.

But when her own marriage breaks up and she suffers a self-esteem crisis, she takes on the assignment, goes to Paris and discovers that Madame Simone is not quite what she expected.

“It’s a lighthearted romp with a big heart,” Hamilton says, “and that’s OK with me. I’ve suffered, grieved and survived on screen for 20 years,” most recently running from lava in “Dante’s Peak.” Her theory as to why: “I have a strong jaw and sad eyes.”

Hamilton, who moved up from B-films 16 years ago when director James Cameron hired her to star opposite the pre-mega Arnold Schwarzenegger in “The Terminator,” has since struggled to find an equally memorable role. She doesn’t pretend that “Sex & Mrs. X” is it but believes that it does show her feminine side.

“I loved the character and the dialogue,” she says. “One of my first roles was a sex kitten in the ‘Secrets of Midland Heights,’ but real sexiness is maturity, not flamboyant little outfits. This character is mature, self-confident and has a lot of sass”--by the end, at least.

“There’s a line in the film--’It’s never too late to find out who you might have been’--and that says it all,” Hamilton adds. “Too many of us get fixed into life choices. I’m always reinventing myself. I’m a gypsy.

“It took me until my 40s to find out who I am. [She is 43.] I’ve finally stopped dancing around and have really gotten down to business. Behavior you think is adorable in your 20s is barely acceptable in your 30s. But when you have kids, somebody has to be the adult.”

Hamilton, who has two young children, is speaking by phone from Malibu. Since her breakup two years ago with Cameron, her second husband, she has kept out of the public eye, taking the occasional acting role but primarily concentrating on her son Dalton, 10, from her first marriage to actor Bruce Abbott, and her daughter Josephine, 6, with Cameron.

She seems to have come to terms with the end of her relationship with Cameron, which began during the filming of “Terminator 2,” while he was still married to director Katherine Bigelow. Hamilton and Cameron married in 1997, and she filed for divorce a year later, after he became involved with “Titanic” actress Suzy Amis.

“I love him as much as I ever did,” Hamilton says, “but it doesn’t mean that the heartbreak wasn’t huge and I haven’t suffered. I knew who he was when I married him, and I love him still. He’s lucky I took a vow to love him.” Then she adds candidly, “I’m glad I don’t have to share all of the day with him.”

Her days are mostly spent with her children. “I love being home with them,” she says. “It’s nice to be fully present, although being a single mother has its inconveniences. It’s hard enough that their daddies don’t live here, but they’re very present in their lives. Children and dads are constantly coming and going. In the summer it’s like military maneuvers. I’ll do anything so the children don’t feel absence and loss.”

Not in need of money--”I married well,” she jokes--she can be picky about her projects. She voices the Saturday morning cartoon “The Adventures of Buzz Lightyear” because, she notes, “I love the challenge of having my voice as the only instrument.” This summer she plans to make “Bailey’s Mistake” for Touchstone and ABC.

“My life is agreeing with me beautifully,” she says. “I’ve grown into a happy and serene person. Yes, there was lots of suffering, but that’s where growth comes from.”

Part of Hamilton’s balance comes from her decision in 1996 to deal chemically with her lifelong problem with depression. “I should be the poster child for Zoloft,” she says. “It transformed my life and provided a steadfastness in my personality. I’ve always had big mood swings, but I resisted anything chemical because I was afraid of dulling myself. I didn’t feel I had to be unhappy to be a good actor, but I couldn’t get out of my way of thinking. I tried to change things with diet and nutrition, and finally I surrendered and said, ‘This is the way God made me. Life’s a little harder for me.’

“Then at a certain point it became exhausting, and I said, ‘I need help.’ I believe a brief stint of Prozac saved my life. I’d gotten into such a place of mortal anxiety, but now I’m fine.”

As a result, she is reevaluating her future. “Part of the joy of having longevity is you get to start choosing projects,” she says. “In your early years you take anything [‘Children of the Corn,’ ‘King Kong Lives,’ ‘TAG: The Assassination Game’], and it looks brilliant. You’re so busy chasing it that 10 years come and go. Now I wonder, ‘Is this truly what I do best?’ I’m settled enough that I’m beginning to look at the person I started out as and thinking maybe I should do stage work.”

Hamilton and her twin sister Leslie, who grew up in Salisbury, Md., were child actors. “People would say, ‘Oh, great! Let’s cast them both as the princess,’ and we’d switch off,” she remembers. Her sister later decided to pursue nursing, but Hamilton went to New York after a year of college and studied with “Rebel Without a Cause” director Nicholas Ray at the Lee Strasberg Institute. Work in theater led to TV (“Beauty and the Beast”) and eventually the role of Sarah Connor in “The Terminator.”

Will there be another installment of “Terminator”? Hamilton isn’t ruling it out. “A script is being written,” she says, “but if Jim doesn’t direct it I wouldn’t do it. Jim’s the genius behind it, and I’m loyal to that. Sarah Connor was a wonderful character but not one I want to revisit. It could have been my way of life, because it’s so empowering, but I’m not that woman anymore. I’ve become this normal human being.”