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BY ANDREW O'HEHIR | JANEANE GAROFALO -- even in the highly artificial circumstances of a film studio's publicity junket -- is a regular gal. I don't mean that she comes off, as many movie actors do, like some Stepford vision of the mythical suburban girl or boy next door. I mean that she immediately seemed to be someone I knew, a friend of a friend, a bohemia-tinged artistic type verging on midlife, very smart, self-deprecatingly funny, a little neurotic, a little too confessional. Think Mary Tyler Moore, if Mary had listened to the Cramps in college, read and enjoyed "Lolita," gotten a tattoo, moved to downtown Manhattan. Of course, it's precisely this instant, indefinable likability that makes Garofalo so effective in mainstream romantic comedies like "The Matchmaker," a genial new offering from Australian director Mark Joffe. Like any comic actor, Garofalo obviously wants to be loved. What makes her unusual is that her need and vulnerability seem not repellent but completely sympathetic, completely familiar. Although she's actually a poised and attractive woman, with flashing eyes and an irresistible smile, we somehow accept her as the "ugly duckling" (in "The Truth About Cats and Dogs") or the dateless workaholic (in this film). We invest in her emotional life, in some subconscious, alchemical way, as though her yearning to be loved were actually ours. In "The Matchmaker," Garofalo plays Marcy, a supposedly hard-ass political aide who blunders into a Irish village's matchmaking festival while trying to dredge up a struggling Massachusetts senator's Gallic roots. Naturally Marcy immediately dislikes the apparently irresponsible and carefree Sean (David O'Hara) -- she encounters him first in the bathtub of her hotel room -- and naturally circumstances will throw them together, teach them to respect each other and pull them apart again. Garofalo arrived for her early-morning round of interviews in a New York hotel suite and answered questions in the rapid, boisterous cadences of her native New Jersey. Even in an age of increasing celebrity paranoia and journalistic prurience, hearing her talk about her sex life, her dogs and her childhood somehow seemed the most relaxed thing in the world. Can you talk about the sorts of scripts you see and the sorts of movies you end up doing? "The Matchmaker" is a pretty conventional romantic comedy, while you're a pretty unconventional actress. To some extent, that's what makes it work, but I can't help wondering why you chose this material. I'll tell you -- the lion's share of scripts most people get are romantic comedies, because for whatever reason the studio thinks that's money in the bank. I get these very good indie scripts that have not a chance in hell of ever being made, and that's why I've been unemployed a lot lately. There were two movies I was supposed to do that fell apart right before I did them. There are scripts I get that are laugh-out-loud funny, incredibly dark, really weird, interesting dialogue -- and there's no way anyone's going to make them. Unfortunately for me, I get involved with them, have the meetings, block out the time and then they just go away. And what you're left with is: Oh my God! Here's the conventional one that's actually a green-light project. Do you want to work? So you don't yet have enough power to get movies made? Almost no one does, even very powerful people. The business of moviemaking is so complex and takes so long that you really have to be one of the top five actors to have a smooth-sailing thing. Even people you would think could do it, like Jessica Lange -- I think it took them 10 years to make "A Thousand Acres." There's a movie I want to make called "Girls," based on a book by Frederick Busch about a campus policeman and his wife. I cannot recommend that book strongly enough; it's just a small story. Well, my character, that I want to play, is 40. If I start trying to get the movie made now, I'll be 40 by the time it gets made! In your previous film, "The Truth About Cats and Dogs," you played the "ugly girl." In "The Matchmaker," you're the object of many men's desires ..." That's the great thing about an Irish film -- their priorities are in the right place. They don't have the rules that we have here about "pretty" and "ugly." There was never the producers' meeting about how I needed to lose weight. There was never that wardrobe meeting about "Can we put her in something different?" In every movie I do here, there's always the "little talk" we have or the "little message" my agent has to give me about somebody suggesting that I might want to think about losing weight. There's always endless hours of wardrobe where they have to find the most monochromatic Donna Karan suit with no pockets and no zippers and tell me that if I'm wearing certain things I should be sitting down in this scene. What's that about? You're a thinner-than-average woman. Of course in real life, I'm fine. Body-wise, I'm OK. But when you put me on film I turn into Gérard Depardieu. I just get rock solid. NEXT PAGE: Talking to Dad about sex

PHOTO BY PAUL CHEDLOW | COURTESY OF GRAMERCY PICTURES | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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