This is Rene Russo? In ““Lethal Weapon 3’’ she played an internal-affairs officer who delivered so many karate kicks that the actress, 41, now says, ““I’ll never do that again. My groin is still out.’’ For ““In the Line of Fire,’’ she played a Secret Service agent who bedded down with Clint Eastwood, flinging to the floor not the traditional lingerie but handcuffs and a handgun. Now, in ““Outbreak,’’ she’s a doctor dueling a virus spread by a monkey. Russo’s best movies have been typically tumescent, action-oriented smashes – Detective Riggs pushed her into the men’s room in ““Lethal 3,’’ and her career has yet to make it out. But Russo bows to no man. On screen, she’s wonderfully tough and combative. Off-screen, though, she seems kind, self-deprecating, accommodating to what she suspects might be a fault. ““Outbreak’’ producer Arnold Kopelson raves about Russo and says the cast adored her. Then he adds, ““She also got along very well with the monkey.''

Twenty years ago, Russo was interviewed for a Newsweek cover story about Lauren Hutton and the new breed of models. The article described her as ““a ravishing brunette . . . with smoldering Rita Hayworth-like sensuality.’’ It quoted her as saying her ambition was to be a movie star ““without having to work for it.’’ Russo hoots when she’s shown the old clipping. She spent an exceedingly unhappy childhood on a seedy block in Burbank, while her mother worked two jobs. She learned she had scoliosis and wore a body cast until she was 14. Russo was a loner. She couldn’t concentrate in school, and dropped out. She was working as an eyeglass-lens inspector when an agent spotted her walking out of a Rolling Stones concert. Before long, she was shipped off to New York to shoot a Revlon ad with Richard Avedon. ““I was scared to death,’’ she says. ““I walked into his studio and burst into tears.’’ Russo’s Rita Hayworth-like sensuality never did much for her self-esteem. New Yorkers told her she was ignorant, and she believed them. She crawled inside herself. Eventually, Avedon suggested therapy.

When Russo made the cover of Vogue, her father got in touch with her for the first time in 17 years. She was terrified, but she went to see him. And he told her she was ignorant. ““Here’s a man who leaves you for 17 years, meets you because you’re on the cover of Vogue, and then tells you you’re ignorant,’’ she says. ““What kind of person is that? My God. How did I respond? I crawled in deeper.’’ Russo had a long, if joyless, tenure as a model. She bought a home for her mother, as well as a small Laurel Canyon house for herself (one that, swamped in ivy, filled with Swedish antiques, she now shares with her screenwriter husband, Danny Gilroy, and their 18-month-old daughter, Rose). After 15 years, Russo knew the modeling industry was through with her: ““I went from being on the cover of Vogue to standing on the beach for some piece-of-s— pregnancy catalog with a pillow over my stomach.''

After modeling, Russo took four years off, tried to figure out why she was so damn unhappy and studied theology. By the time she took a stab at acting – with 1989’s ““Major League,’’ then movies like ““Freejack’’ and ““One Good Cop’’ – she was in her mid-30s. It’s her age, of course, that make Russo’s performances seem so layered and lived-in. But last year there were reports that, though she wasn’t considered too young to romance a hoary old gunfighter like Clint Eastwood, Russo was being dropped from ““Batman Forever’’ because she was too old for Val Kilmer. Russo denies the story, saying ““Outbreak’’ simply wasn’t finished in time for her to make ““Batman.’’ ““You be the judge,’’ she says, leaning forward in the rocking chair. ““Am I too old to play opposite Val Kilmer? Take a really good look.’’ Case closed. Later, ““Outbreak’’ director Wolfgang Petersen is asked if he can imagine Kilmer turning Russo down. He laughs. ““No, I can’t. I just can’t.''

““Batman’’ wasn’t to be, but Russo has moved on to Elmore Leonard’s ““Get Shorty,’’ in which she plays a B-movie star and shares the screen with John Travolta and Gene Hackman. She’s off this week. What does she do with her down time? ““I go out in the garden with the baby,’’ she says. ““I go to birthday parties for kids, because everybody’s got kids. I go to showers, because everybody’s pregnant. Simple stuff. But those are wonderful moments.’’ Russo saw her father off and on for years after the Vogue cover, but it was always on his terms, and it always set her back emotionally. So she stopped. But her self-esteem still misfires on occasion. ““I tell myself I’m not good enough all the time,’’ she says. ““Would I do that to my daughter? Hell, no. Never.’’ Soon, Gilroy brings Rose in from the park. He says the baby pointed to the ““Outbreak’’ billboard on Sunset Boulevard and exclaimed, ““Mommy!’’ Russo scoops her up and spins around chanting, ““Ro-sie! Ro-sie! Ro-sie!’’ She pauses. ““Thank God I waited so long to have kids.’’ Everything in good time.