“This is such a great room,” she says, her shoulder-length hair a blur of blond and brown streaks.

Since this is her first movie junket, the stunning young starlet, 28, has yet to learn proper hotel-interview etiquette.

Thank goodness.

Her exhilaration is contagious, and her dearth of rehearsed, deflective answers to personal questions couldn't be more musical to a grizzled journalist's ears.

The junket is for “Body Shots,” New Line Cinema's upcoming ensemble movie about a group of Los Angeles club dwellers. But Peet is better known right now as Jacqueline (Jack) Barrett to Ivan Sergei's David (Jill) Jillefsky in the WB Network's new romantic drama, “Jack and Jill.” Despite its trite play on character names, the series is a clever reflection on young adult relationships in the big city.

“There's a spark between my character and Ivan's,” says Peet, who has found a cushy chair in the overly air-conditioned suite and is nestling inside an oversize sweater.

After Jack is jilted by her fiance in Boston, she starts a new life in New York City. Hunky Jill lives in Jack's building. But she's not the slightest bit interested in a rebound relationship. Or so she thinks.

“We have the meet cute or is that the cute meet?” Peet says. “And then it's, like, are they or aren't they? And there are many obstacles thrown in our way, including my bad attitude since I got screwed over at the altar.”

Many of the roles on Peet's ballooning resume explore the tangles of modern romance. In addition to her gigs as Jack and as Sean Patrick Flanery's stable girlfriend in “Body Shots,” Peet offered her shoulder for unfulfilled Jennifer Aniston to cry on in “She's the One,” and played a small part in the neuroses-as-seduction comedy “Playing By Heart.” She also stars in the upcoming Destination release, “Whipped,” which she calls “not a pleasant look at dating in the '90s.”

Have these fictional explorations conferred any real-life answers to making relationships work?

“I have no answers,” she says. “Am I supposed to say that? This is my first junket. My publicist is freaking out.”

Peet says she's currently serious with actor Brian Van Holt (“A Very Brady Sequel”). “We're madly in love,” she adds of her “Whipped” co-star. “I've always been a serial monogamist.”

Peet and Van Holt share an apartment overlooking the Sunset Strip. And the irony that starring in a show that takes place in New York City necessitated relocating to Hollywood was not lost on this born-and-bred Manhattanite.

“I miss New York so much,” she says.

Peet began taking acting classes when she was 8 and lived in London. After returning to the Big Apple, she was tutored by Broadway actress Uta Hagen. She graduated from Manhattan Friends High School, a Quaker institution, and then Columbia University. Although her degree was in history, she knew acting was her future.

At 22, Peet moved into her own apartment and began what she thought would be a protracted familiarity with serving restaurant diners while struggling to make it. That struggle was not to be, thanks to Skittles candy.

A commercial for the fruity candy, in which Peet spun cartwheels, supported her for more than two years with its $75,000 in residual returns. In that time, she landed bit parts on “Seinfeld,” “Spin City,” “The Single Guy,” “Law and Order” and “Central Park West.” In 1996 she scored her first major movie, “One Fine Day,” starring George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer.

“There so wasn't a plan,” she says. “Are you kidding? It was just, `Say yes to work.' That was the plan.”

Up next for Peet is the film “Isn't She Great?” in which she plays the editor who discovers Valley of the Dolls author Jacqueline Susann (Bette Midler). Then comes “The Whole Nine Yards,” a Mafia spoof in which Peet plays a contract killer moonlighting as a dental assistant. (She has a nude scene opposite Bruce Willis.) There's also “Take Down,” starring Skeet Ulrich, and Justin McCarthy's indie feature, “Jump.”

Peet says she hasn't decided whether she prefers movies or television yet.

“That's such a hard question. The thing about TV is the marathon aspect of it. It's never-ending, the hours are hard and it's about pacing yourself. Don't try to hit it out of the ballpark every time don't fight for every line, for every hairdo, whatever.

“On the other hand, it's an insulated little story, so you can kind of design exactly what you want to do in that little frame.”

One role Peet says she'd sacrifice anything to play is that of a stereotypical New Jersey girl.

“I don't know what that's about,” Peet says. “It's so weird. But somebody has to write me this part or I'm gonna kill myself. I want to be the girl on the boardwalk with the Camaro, the dice and the really cheesy perfume. I want to have a baby, be smoking a cigarette and talking on the telephone all at the same time.”

Hollywood insiders seem to agree that Peet is on the verge of stardom. Thanks to “Jack and Jill,” Peet says she's already being recognized on the street.

“But it's usually a mistake,” she says. “I have to say, `I'm not Denise Richards.'”

Publish Date: Saturday October 16, 1999

Fan Mail Contact:
Amanda Peet
c/o Jack and Jill
c/o The Warner Brothers Television Network
4000 Warner Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91522