HOLLYWOOD - ALL these years later, it's still hard to look at Linda Hunt and not think of photographer Billy Kwan in 1982's "The Year of Living Dangerously."

That gender-bending role opposite Mel Gibson won her an Academy Award, and it's still helping to open doors for the diminutive 64-year-old actress, who embarks on her first job as a TV series regular tonight with the premiere of CBS' "NCIS: Los Angeles."

When he offered her the role of Henrietta "Hetty" Lange in the "NCIS" spin-off, executive producer Shane Brennan told her, "oddly enough," she said, that "he wanted to create a character of enormous color and humor."

Why would that be odd?

"Well, because I don't think that I've been allowed to play humor that much in my career," Hunt said in an interview this summer on the show's Paramount Studios set.

"I think he's seen a lot of my films, and I know he loves 'The Year of Living Dangerously.' I think that's what he wanted . . . an actor."

Hetty appears to fulfill multiple roles in the Office of Special Projects, a branch of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, from harassing agents G. Callan (Chris O'Donnell) and Sam Hanna (LL Cool J) about their expenses to making sure they and others working undercover have the very latest in tech support.

"Shane has said to me she's sort of like a den mother," Hunt said.

When it was suggested that the character's sense of ultra-responsibility bears some similarity to Kwan's, Hunt paused.

"Oh, that's so interesting," she said. "I do think, in terms of the moral fiber of the character, you're right."

Hetty and Kwan also share, she said, a "deep eccentricity."

Asked earlier at a press conference why she'd chosen to take a series now, Hunt, who had a recurring roles as a judge on ABC's "The Practice" and more recently has appeared on CBS' "Without a Trace" and "The Unit," quipped that "not working at all had a lot to do with it."

Brennan, she added, performed "a little seduction . . . and I thought, 'Well, why not? You know, I've been living a life of a retired old person for quite a while. So perhaps I'll just change all that and work harder than I've ever worked in my life.' "

Her rapper-turned-actor co-star is already a fan.

"I love watching her work. It is incredible for me," LL Cool J told reporters. "It's an education that, you know, I don't think you can put into words, you know, getting an opportunity to watch Linda work every day."

"You haven't worked with me every day," Hunt pointed out.

"No, no. I've watched you every day, though, every day you've worked, you know," he replied. "And I always come out of my trailer when she's doing scenes and watch and just - because her preparation, and it's so obvious that she's so experienced and talented."

But not, perhaps, as tech-savvy as Hetty is.

"On the first day [of shooting], when I was absolutely beside myself because I had this long list of sort of specs for a new up-to-date cell phone," Hunt recalled, "I had memorized it, but I knew I could never do it."

The director, she said, told her not to worry.

"He said, 'We will try when we get to the end of this scene to see where you are with this, because if you could say it right off the top of your head, it would be wonderful, but we won't die if that doesn't happen.' "

Later when it was time to attempt the list, she said, "Chris [O'Donnell] picked up the little cheat sheet that I had, and he got a piece of Scotch tape, and he Scotch-taped it to his chest. His back was to the camera. So every time I thought, 'Oh, I don't know what the next thing is,' I just looked at Chris' chest. It was wonderful.

"It's one of the best things that's ever happened to me," Hunt said.

Of her Oscar-winning performance in what was only the stage-trained actress' second film, she recalled, "I was deeply innocent. I really was. I didn't know half the time whether the camera was on me or on somebody else. I mean, I was just stupid about that. And I think that maybe that saved my life. I think if I'd known any more than I did I might have said no."

Now, though, she's ready to live a little dangerously.

"I've never done this before. And it's a little scary, which is what's great about it, I think. Because it's wonderful to be scared. You know, at a certain point in your life, you think, 'Oh, that's over. I don't have to be scared anymore.' And all of a sudden, someone gives you a reason to be scared.

"Oh, my God! I'm still alive," she said, laughing. *

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