Love Hewitt has staying power

'HEARTBREAKERS' stars JASON LEE and JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT in a wedding scene from the MGM 2001 hit.

Hardly surprising as she began as a youngster. By the age of nine she was in the Texas Show Team and touring Russia. Best known as Sarah in the TV series "Party Of Five," she also has three solo albums to her credit.

And she's still only 22.

Her determination has never been in doubt. How many other young girls of ten would insist that her mother move to Los Angeles so the young hopeful could pursue a performing career. "I knew I didn't really fit into my home town," she explains. "I was loud, obnoxious and wanted to entertain people. They said, 'if you want to do that stuff, you should go to LA'. My mom didn't want me to go and said, 'we'll go for one month to give it a try and if we're not happy, we'll come back.' I've been there 13 years now."

She already had an agent when she arrived there on her tenth birthday. She recalls. "I've had such an enjoyable life, I don't believe I missed out on anything in my childhood. I was never normal anyway."

After making her name in two "I Know What You Did..." horror movies, Love has branched out with more roles in films. She played the title role in a TV movie about the life of Oscar-winning actress Audrey Hepburn, an experience she describes as "unbelievable" as it was something of which she'd always dreamed.

She explains: "Audrey Hepburn is the reason I started acting after my mom showed me 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' when I was seven." The pressure of playing such an icon almost proved too much. Press criticism before filming, suggesting she wasn't beautiful or talented enough to play Hepburn, dented her confidence. She told her mother she was going to back out of the movie because she was afraid of what people would say. "She said, 'go back and read Audrey Hepburn's story', and the thing she was most afraid of was what people would say, that she wasn't beautiful enough or talented enough. Right there, I had all I needed at that moment to go and get who she was, and to do it for me and not anybody else."

At the centre of Love's recent movie "Heartbreakers" is a similar mother-daughter relationship between Max (Weaver) and Page (Hewitt). "Sigourney is great. Her focus is unbelievable. She knows exactly what she's doing from the beginning of a scene to the end, and carries through. Every take is pretty much flawless and it was pretty great to watch," says Love.

"Heartbreakers" also gave her the chance to wear a wedding dress for a marriage scene. This is something Love has been planning since she was 12 and subscribed to every bridal magazine. "I've been planning my wedding forever. That was my favourite scene because it was playing dressed up although the temperature was 105 degrees. I love the whole wedding thing, it's so romantic and sweet.

Mine won't be for another 20 years but it will be a big deal when it happens."