September 18, 2003  | TORONTO -- Kate Beckinsale dispels the gloom of her dimly lit hotel room with a mega-watt smile that a Cheshire cat might envy.
 
She's midway through a morning of promotional interviews for Underworld, a special midnight-movie attraction at the Toronto Film Festival, but she's showing no signs of chat fatigue. Indeed, her exuberance is such that she repeatedly shifts and sways on her plush chair, coiling and uncoiling her slim 5-foot-8-inch frame as she punctuates responses with throaty laughs and impudent giggles.
 
The loudest, longest laugh comes in response to a query about her two most recent roles. In Underworld, set to open Friday in theaters everywhere, the 30-year-old, British-born beauty plays a duster-cloaked, skintight-latex-clad vampire warrior who leads other members of her undead clan in urban warfare against a band of shape-shifting "Lycans" (i.e., werewolves). Next summer, she'll be an invaluable aide to the title character in Van Helsing, a mega-budget action-adventure about the heretofore unknown exploits of the eponymous vampire hunter (played by Hugh Jackman) immortalized in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
 
So tell us, Kate: Does this mean that, when we look back on your career years from now, we'll refer to this as your Vampire Period?
 
"Probably," she concedes after her laughter subsides. "The funny thing is, I'm not into vampire movies at all. But even I have to admit, this 'I don't like vampire movies' thing is wearing a little thin. I keep saying that, and people start looking at me funny and saying, 'Yeah, right.'"
 
But seriously, folks: "Underworld is not so much a vampire movie, or a horror movie, as it is an action movie. Which is why I wanted to do it, frankly. I've always wanted to do an action movie. The trouble is, as a girl, whenever you're sent a great action movie script, you usually wind up wanting to play the boy's part instead."
 
Beckinsale -- whose resume includes everything from wartime romance (Pearl Harbor) to meet-cute comedy (Serendipity) to satirical costume drama (Cold Comfort Farm) -- eagerly endured three months of physical and firearms training to play Selene, the vampire warrior who fearlessly strides through an unidentified gothic cityscape (to be specific, Budapest, Hungary), heavily armed with silver bullets and automatic weapons while hunting Lycans.
 
"Apparently," Beckinsale says with tongue-in-cheeky pride, "I fire more rounds in this movie than any woman ever has in any previous film. Which is something, really, don't you think?"
 
The action is fast, furious and frequently bloody -- think Blade meets The Matrix -- but the plot pivots on a star-crossed romance. Selene falls for Michael (Scott Speedman), a seemingly mortal innocent who's caught in the crossfire. When he's revealed to have werewolf blood, the vampire warrior must defend him against the Lycan predators and her own bloodsucking sect.

Speaking of romance: Since completing Underworld, Beckinsale has announced her engagement to Len Wiseman, the film's director. But don't misunderstand.

"It wasn't love at first sight," she says. "It was immediate rapport and a great work relationship. He's such a comic-book genius nerd, he knew all about this adventure-horror stuff, all this wire-work action trickery. And here I was, thinking, 'I don't know what the bleep I'm doing.' I was so concerned about that for the longest time, I really didn't notice how handsome he is."
 
But Kate, consider this: All throughout filming -- presumably, as he fell in love with you -- he couldn't help noticing how yummy you looked in that black-latex jumpsuit.
 
"That's true," she concedes with another burst of laughter. "I never thought about that. But you know, he's never asked me to wear the outfit again. And we've already had Christmas, birthdays, other holidays. And he hasn't dragged it out of the closet yet and asked, 'Oh, please wear this for me! It's Christmas!'"