by MATTHEW HAYS

PASCALE BUSSIERES exudes a cool, calm reserve as we sit down to discuss her career in an eatery in the gay village. The actress, currently shooting the Bruce McDonald-directed pilot Platinum, doesn't seem to flinch at the patrons around her, most of whom are whispering with their company about the face they've just recognized. The waiters are flushed and appear to be in a bit of a catfight as to which one of them will actually get to clear the table of Quebec's fastest-rising new thespian.

"Suddenly you're watched all the time," Bussières acknowledges after I ask her about dealing with notoriety. "I'm actually a very shy person. I don't like to be watched when I'm walking down the street, I just don't know what to do with it, how to handle it. The pleasure of watching without being seen--I lost that for a while--it's a one-way kind of thing."

Though Bussières insists that she's not the least bit interested in stardom, the past five years of her career have been a series of coups. A starring role in the immensely popular Blanche (the sequel to Les Filles de Caleb); critical raves for her turn in Eldorado, the largely improvised experiment by Charles Binamé; more raves for her portrayal of a lesbian in Patricia Rozema's When Night is Falling; a starring role in Guy Maddin's latest madness (release forthcoming) Twilight of the Ice Nymphs; and continued television work, including her role in Platinum, which is the pilot for a proposed series.

"I haven't improved," Bussières says of her evolution. "Well, I guess I have a bit. For me it's just one big line that goes on. It's almost like the same movie I've been enjoying for years."

Despite the modesty, Bussières acknowledges that there have been particularly challenging roles along the way. "Eldorado was hard. I thought it was going to be easier. It's terrifying to come on the set in the morning and not know what you're going to be saying." Bussières's sensitive portrayal in Binamé's largely improvised Eldorado won her a Genie nomination.

Bussières also cites her first foray into English-language filmmaking, When Night is Falling, as a landmark. "I fucked up the audition completely," she recalls. "My audition was in English, which was like Japanese to me at the time. I felt totally insecure." Rozema called Bussières back and had her audition for the other role, which she then got. Bussières had a revelation about acting and her mother tongue. "It has nothing to do with language. It has to do with the way you talk, the way you move. It's a physical thing. It was lucky, because that film was very well directed."

Bussières seems surprised at the suggestion that playing a lesbian for the first time may have presented a challenge. "Oh no. Playing a Calvinist was more difficult. It was very far from me. I've never been a Calvinist. Playing a lesbian was no big deal. It was a love story, that's all. I wouldn't have done a hardcore lesbian love scene--you know, with fist-fucking or anything." But many of the scenes were quite racy, no? "Yeah, but we're doing that with men in movies. It's much easier with a woman than a man. There's no penis in between. This thing--if it's not up, it doesn't work, and if it's up, it's pornographic. So you never see it.

"When we were promoting the film in New York, Entertainment Tonight was there. Their reporter asked me 'Are you a lesbian?' 'Are you a vegetarian?' I responded. It doesn't really matter. People are pretending that they're very open-minded, but it's not so, especially in sexual regards. It's amazing." Bussières, for the record, is straight but shies away from questions about her personal life. She keeps the hungry Quebec tabloid press at bay and indicates that she fears that too much invasion of her privacy would interfere with her craft. Bussières's foray into English-language filmmaking was, of course, hugely successful, helping to put Toronto director Rozema back on the map after a critical slump. After rising to the top of Quebec's star system, Bussières has also joined a select group that is in demand in both French and English Canada. Straddling the two solitudes has given Bussières a unique take on the Canadian filmmaking scene.

"I think Quebec cinema is more reality-based--I'm talking aesthetically, the look of the film. Atom Egoyan is like that--very formal, very structural. It's on top of reality, it shows you that it's a fictional thing. So far, what I'm doing on the French side is much more attached to reality. I think the anglophones go wilder."

Bussières' political allegiances have traditionally been with the Rhino Party. She performed in a political cabaret benefit, singing a song she'd penned herself the week prior to the election. She says that both federalist and sovereignist politicians are "completely out of touch with reality," calling the political situation "totally terrifying, a nightmare. I don't watch the TV anymore or read the newspaper.

"The debate around sovereignty right now is completely sterile. I'm not confident in the sovereignty movement anymore. It's scary the way it's split the province in two. It's very confrontational. I was very scared the night of the referendum--there was violence in the air. I understand both positions: the anglophones need their place, they feel scared about their position in the event of a Yes vote. We French Canadians have to keep our culture alive. We have to fight for it, since we're surrounded by anglophones. The day we stop, it's going to take 10 years for us to disappear--we don't have great roots here, after all."

What about deserting Canada's fractious and acrimonious political scene and escaping to L.A.? Bussières, after all, has already done some work for U.S. cable TV, including Thunderpoint, in which she starred opposite Kyle MacLachlan. Her appeal, a sensual combination of exotic and down-to-earth, could easily be marketable in America. "I don't care about the U.S. I don't relate generally to their culture. I don't like the way they approach the medium--it's sheer enterprise and business. It's like being held hostage by so much money. Everyone has their own trailer. What is that? We're making a movie. Come on, there are people suffering in this world. It drives me nuts."