She may be the object of male fantasies as porn actress Athena in The Girl Next Door, but Elisha Cuthbert is also a masterful mechanic, she tells Steve Pratt.

IF you ever take Elisha Cuthbert out for a drive, don't worry if the car breaks down. The chances are she'll be under the bonnet sorting out the problem before you can call the RAC.

The Canadian-born actress from TV's 24 series spent four years presenting an award-winning educational series called Popular Mechanics For Kids, which took her around the country as a high school student.

Along the way, she acquired her mechanical skills. "I've sorted out fan belts and mended breaks," she says. "I've always been handy in that way because my father worked in the car industry. I've been out with guys before and the car's broken down, and a lot of girls might have panicked. I just got my head under the bonnet and fixed the problem."

The cable series also brought her to the attention of the former First Lady, Hillary Clinton. She invited Cuthbert and her fellow presenter to the White House for a private tour.

The actress had her own brush with the President - a fictional one - in the TV series 24, in which she played special agent Jack Bauer's long-suffering daughter Kimberly. The character endured kidnapping and all manner of horrors, but nothing quite as frightening as Cuthbert's real life brush with a cougar.

The mountain lion featured in one of Kim's storylines. On the set, the cougar bit her hand, sinking its teeth into the fleshy area between the thumb and index finger. "I almost lost my thumb and it temporarily paralysed my finger," she recalls.

Now Cuthbert is branching out into movies. You might have spotted her in a tiny role in the Richard Curtis Brit romcom Love Actually. You certainly won't miss her in US teen comedy The Girl Next Door, released this week - she's the star.

As Danielle, she seduces straight-A high school student Matthew, who's both pleased and alarmed to discover that she's actually a porn star called Athena.

Cuthbert is used to being asked what research she did for the role, admitting to leafing through editions of Playboy and Hustler, and talking to actresses working in blue movies.

"I had visions of the porn industry as this really tacky, gross thing," she admits. "But the girls are really like girls you'd see in Beverly Hills. They're normal girls, and they just go and do their thing."

As a showcase for the 21-year-old actress, The Girl Next Door couldn't be better - or more different, than Kim in 24. "The character of Danielle is different from anything I've played before," she says. "It's way out there. The changes that Danielle goes through are formidable, and her transition from being Athena the porn star to Danielle the girl next door is huge."

Her schedule while making the film was exhausting. She filmed five days a week on 24 and spent her weekends making The Girl Next Door. Tiring, yes, but necessary as far as she's concerned. "The truth is that I get sheer enjoyment from working, and it's important to me to have a film career as well as a television career," she says.

"I'm so totally for working all the time and would rather do this than being unemployed, of course. I'm trying to build a career brick by brick."

Her career began as a model at the age of seven. A recurring role in Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid Of The Dark? was followed by Popular Mechanics For Kids.

It's good to hear that her own family background is considerably less fraught and much happier than Kimberly's. "Unlike my 24 character, who suffered through her parents' divorce before her mother was murdered, my parents have been together for almost 25 years and always provided a strong family base," she says.

"Their support until I gained independence was wonderful. I have a great relationship with my father. My mother and I are very close as well. I'm lucky to have them - they're cool people."

Published: 15/04/2004