Kate Bosworth is the Hollywood actress dating Orlando Bloom playing a girl who wins a date with a movie star. Steve Pratt reports.

RISING Hollywood star Kate Bosworth plays a small town girl who wins a date with a Hollywood heartthrob in her new movie. Off-screen, she has no need to enter a competition to win the heart of a movie star - she's going out with actor Orlando Bloom, from Lord Of The Rings and Pirates Of The Caribbean.

She won't be drawn on the subject, and his name doesn't pass her lips. But she can't escape the fact that dating an actor is within her range of experience. "Just living your life as an actor is interesting to have it portrayed in a movie, and relate it to your own life," she says.

As for the media intruding on her private life, she adds: "I guess it comes with the territory. Everyone comes to terms with it at a certain point, and moves on".

She has no need to trade on having a famous boyfriend as Bosworth's own career is doing very nicely, thank you. She starred in the surfer chick drama Blue Crush and has two movies, Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! and Wonderland, being released here in coming weeks. She's completed a third, Beyond The Sea, directed by and starring Kevin Spacey. In this biopic of singer Bobby Darin, she plays real life actress Sandra Dee. At 21, Bosworth is on the brink of real Hollywood stardom. After making her film debut in Robert Redford's drama The Horse Whisperer, she pulled back from acting to lead a normal life. Now she's contemplating how to fit attending Princeton University into her busy schedule.

"Throughout high school, I did a few small parts here and there," she recalls. "I'd go away for two months to work and have to correspond with my teachers. I'd work 14 hours a day filming and then do six hours of school. It was a constant struggle. When I graduated high school, I decided to defer from college and concentrate on work."

So she put off enrolment and headed for Los Angeles. Whatever she decides about university, she won't take three years out in one go, more likely a year of studying alternating with a year of acting. She filmed Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! and Wonderland back to back, having read both scripts on the way back from shooting Blue Crush in Hawaii. "I said to my agent that if I could do both it would be great," she says.

Her wish was granted. As grocery clerk Rosalee in Win A Date, she goes to Hollywood for a night out with a movie star. The whole LA movie lifestyle isn't new to Bosworth, who's used to the media attention.

"It's always so strange, that whole outpouring of flashbulbs. You never get used to it," she says. "The first time I walked the red carpet was for Remember The Titans. It was a Jerry Bruckheimer production so the premiere was big, at the Rosebowl with 15,000 people. That was my first experience and it was really wild.

"I was probably like Rosalee in that situation I was in shock, I think. They make the red carpet to be out to be so much fun, but most of the time you're blinded by the flashbulbs and trying to work out what you're doing."

She's getting used to being approached by fans, admitting she's more comfortable with it now. "When they're a fan, it's rather sweet," she says. "It's an amazing thing to shake someone's hand and know they get joy out of it. I feel very normal, it always baffles me a bit." In Wonderland, she plays Dawn, teenage girlfriend of famously well-endowed porn star John Holmes. The story revolves around brutal multiple murders involving Holmes in LA in 1981 - before she was even born.

"I didn't know anything about anything," she admits. "The script was my introduction to John Holmes and the murders. That was my first understanding of it and was a fascinating story."

While others may predict great things for her, Bosworth remains cool and calm. She doesn't regard herself as starring in Win A Date, although she does get top billing.

"I don't really think of myself headlining a film. I don't put that pressure on. There are so many people in the project. I don't think at this stage in my career, my name will draw people in. It's how the thing is put together and everybody else involved," she says.

* Win A Date With Tad Hamilton! (PG) opens in cinemas tomorrow and Wonderland (18) opens on May 7.

Published: 22/04/2004