Unfortunately, since then Lewis has appeared in a string of glorified action movies, the stylized products of the current taste for auteur violence: "Kalifornia," Oliver Stone's execrable "Natural Born Killers," "Strange Days" and, currently "From Dusk 'Til Dawn," with a poster that offers the image of Lewis pointing a gun directly into the viewer's face. She now plays trashy nymphets, abuse victims and half-wits; these directors don't seem to know what to do with her miraculous vulnerability besides brutalize it.

Perhaps Lewis' choice of roles, like Leigh's, reflects a lamentably limited personal preference -- or perhaps she's pursuing the kind of attention she got for "Cape Fear," mistaking that movie's willful sadism for tough-mindedness. At any rate, both Leigh and Lewis are charting markedly different careers from women like Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock, performers of lesser talent and greater fame -- movie stars rather than actresses -- who opt for cuddlier girl-next-door parts. There's a certain machismo to their choices, from Lewis' gun-toting to Leigh's appetite for bitter, screwed-up, unattractive characters; they aren't nice girls.

In many ways, these women resemble the young male actors of the '50s -- Dean, Brando and Clift -- who sought to prove themselves with a flamboyant intensity that defied traditional cinematic masculinity. They played anti-heroes and boys wracked with self-doubt, they agonized freely and visibly, jettisoning the ideal of manly stoicism. They showed a "feminine" abandon to emotional display and at the same time hinted at a potential for violence. In contemporary parlance, they had an edge. This, they asserted, is real acting.

Because traditional Hollywood career wisdom advises against playing too many hookers or lowlifes, the direction Leigh and Lewis have taken can similarly pass as true integrity. Not for these mavericks the sweet, safe, chick flick parts preferred by wimpy Winona Ryder. Furthermore, popular audiences usually do need to be clubbed over the head by a performance before they're impressed by the acting: currently, leading men get the most kudos for playing mentally or physically disabled, insane, homosexual or at the very least foreign characters. Leigh's Sadie Flood is a big, flashy role that has "Look at me act" written all over it, and sure enough, everyone's talking Oscar. Nuance, restraint and shading may be a sterner test of an actor's instrument, but they get a lot less attention.

Ultimately, opting for the naughty side of the madonna/whore dyad constitutes a pretty tame rebellion, just another corner in the same old playground. As a persona-crafting strategy, it feels like a sassy "bad girl" counterpart to "bad boy" directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez (who helmed "From Dusk 'til Dawn"); if so the operative word is "girl," not "woman." It's the result of playing ball with an industry that equates "dark," smart-alecky posturing with profundity.

Consider this: Leigh is around the same age as Emma Thompson (the variation in Leigh's reported birth date may be the only Old Hollywood thing about her), yet still seems like a less mature talent. And, while the prospect of Leigh starring in the forthcoming film adaptation of Dorothy Allison's "Bastard Out of Carolina" (directed by Angelica Huston) can't fail to please fans of the novel, if Leigh's determined to play mistreated adolescents, why not stretch a little and go for Joan of Arc? Or imagine Lewis, instead of Ryder, as Jo March, cutting the syrup of "Little Women" with a tang of genuine danger.

Whether the sameness of the actresses' recent resumes results from personal preference, industry bias (they aren't movie-star beautiful), bad handling or simply the much-bemoaned lack of good parts, they're both being wasted because neither is being challenged. That might have happened under Jack Warner anyway, but at least then we'd know who to blame.

Should Leigh and Lewis broaden their range, or are they on the right track? Voice your opinion in the Movies section of  Table Talk.