Smart move got her role

NEW YORK -- Eight months later Amy Smart is still getting attention for her role as the high school sweetheart in the surprise hit Varsity Blues.

It might be famous by association, since the object of her movie affection was the hunkoid from TV's Dawson's Creek, James Van Der Beek.

That doesn't diminish Smart's appreciation when strangers ask for autographs.

"I get just as excited as the people asking," she admits at a Manhattan hotelroom.

The 23-year-old hasn't had much time to get accustomed to the spotlight and the adoration that goes with it.

Her co-starring part in the Farrelly Brothers' Outside Providence certainly should give her more practice in being recognized on the street.

In the comedy (opening Wednesday), Smart portrays an upper-crust sweetie who falls for a rough-around-the-edges prep school delinquent (Shawn Hatosy).

While the Farrelly Brothers are the same guys who brought us the outrageously farcical There's Something About Mary and Dumb And Dumber, Outside Providence is less frantic and far less foolish.

Some might say it's almost thoughtful in its pursuit of a laugh.

"I really think the characters have more depth than you'd expect," reports Smart cautiously, aware of her rookie status in the film industry.

The L.A. native has only been in the movie business for six years, although she's wanted to act since she was a kid growing up in the San Fernando Valley.

Modelling was her first step, although Smart wasn't all that enthusiastic about the process. She managed to do some decent gigs, even spent some time in Milan working the fashion catwalks before returning home to pursue her dream at 17.

Her big break came in a peculiar way.

Smart made appearances on MTV's Rock The Vote. "I was a coked-up model," she says of her comically negative role in the skit-like sequences encouraging U.S. teens to vote before the U.S. presidential election.

Other film assignments started coming her way -- minor bits in How To Make The Cruelest Month, High Voltage and The Last Time I Committed Suicide.

Smart was also one of the lesser troopers in the adolescent sci-fi flick, Starship Troopers.

"It was like being in a video game," she remembers of the picture. "There was nothing very emotional for my character to do. I had to run around a lot."

However, Varsity Blues challenged her, "and I was very pleasantly surprised by its success."

Varsity Blues was valuable to her in another way, too. The audition process for the film taught her to never give up.

Initially, her friend and roommate Ali Larter beat out Smart for the cheerleader part in the film. But Smart rebounded, talked her way into the other meaty co-starring part as the anti-football Van der Beek girlfriend and, by the way, remained friends with Larter.

Lesson learned?

"Giving up shouldn't be an option," Smart says.

And smart she is.

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