She's Hollywood's latest young rebel, tipped for an Oscar in what is only her second lead role in a movie. And, while other young heroines play it sweet and safe, Angelina Jolie is intent on exploring her darker side. To date, the dangerous beauty is best known for her role as a rookie cop hunting down serial killers with Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector. In her latest film, Girl Interrupted, she commands attention as an asylum inmate and delivers a captivating performance, despite spending much of her screen time tied to a bed in a straitjacket.

Jolie's flirtation with roles that many upcoming actresses would consider risky has her riding high as an Oscar favourite. Off screen, however, the 24-year-old actress is uncomplicated and free spirited.

When she arrived in Australia recently on a promotional and personal trip, it wasn't simply the sight of a tall, slim woman with impossibly full lips that left everyone staring. It was the fact that the former model loped into the country swinging the tiniest of hold-alls. For those expecting the usual mountains of luggage carried by starlets, it was a salutary lesson: with Jolie always expect the unexpected. She is, after all, the woman who shocked the Hollywood establishment at 20 by marrying Trainspotting star Jonny Lee Miller &endash; albeit briefly &endash; in black rubber pants and a white shirt scrawled with his name in her blood. She's also the heart-on-the-sleeve hothead who lost the lead in a prestigious Penny Marshall movie by sobbing uncontrollably throughout the audition after breaking up with actor Timothy Hutton, who is nearly twice her age.

At just 24, the daughter of veteran individualist Jon Voight has played on of the most diverse range of roles ever tackled by a comparative newcomer &endash; from her Golden Globe-winning TV portrayal of heroin-addicted fashion model Gia Marie Carangi, who died of AIDS at 26, and the scene-stealing siren in Pushing Tin, to the naive serial killer- catcher of The Bone Collector and the sociopathic asylum inmate of Girl, Interrupted.

Jolie, however is careful not to overplay her hand. "I'm just me," she says. "People seem to think I'm different, but I'm not. I just don't like to surround myself with a lot of people. I like to take things as I find them, and be true to myself and how I feel."

The lack of emotional baggage mirrors her preference for travelling lightly, she says/ "I don't pack anything for a journey, so every time it makes it an event. Every time, you start off anew. It then makes you walk around a new place to buy a few clothes, and it's always a wonderful way to discover a place."

It certainly isn't shopping for shopping's sake though. Off screen. Jolie has become renown for her penchant for black leather teamed with a seemingly endless array of white T-shirts. She has the grace to look shamefaced at the observation. "Well, it's easy," she says. "You can wear a pair of leather pants three days in a row and you can always buy white T-shirts at Gucci."

Today, that fashion foible seems to have run amok. It's a warm Sydney day, yet Jolie is sitting outside in the hotel's sunny courtyard, squeaking with every movement in a long, side-split black leather skirt, with &endash; yes you guessed it &endash; a white T-shirt, knee-high black leather boots and a full-length black leather coat.

With her hair still damp from the shower and pulled up with a clip on the top of her head, she looks pale as she sips coffee and draws deeply on her cigarette. Yet, when the camera is turned on, she transforms before our eyes. Suddenly, she becomes the gorgeous seductress with the elfin face dominated by enormous green eyes and the famously bee- stung lips which form a beguiling pout.

It's the look that had John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton brawling over her in Pushing Tin. And it's the look that screams stardom in Girl, Interrupted when she unleashes it on a candy seller, and again when he uses it around her fellow inmates, displaying a loose-limbed sexiness that is reminiscent of Uma Thurman.

"You get this feeling of excitement at being there when a persona of enormous talent is still finding their feet," says Phillip Noyce, the Australian director of The Bone Collector, in which Jolie played her first lead role in a major studio film. "It's like working with a rose that's about to bloom; it's a raw talent that hasn't yet matured."

Although Jolie persistently refuses to speak about her father, he undoubtedly set her en route to an acting career. She made her screen debut at seven in Look' to Get Out, which he scripted, produced and starred in. Jolie later appeared in five films made by her student-director brother James, who accompanied her on her recent trip to Australia. From there, she went on to appear in Hackers, plus the TV films Gia and George Wallace &endash; for which she won another Golden Globe award. These were followed by the higher profile productions Playing By Heart, Hell's Kitchen NYC, The Bone Collector and now Girl, Interrupted.

She says her eclectic choice of roles comes through a desire to step into the emotional shoes of others, to genuinely "feel" what other people are going through. "I discovered why it's so great to be an actor," she says, smiling languidly between bites on a cheese melt for breakfast &endash; in endearing preference to the plate of sliced fruit on the table. "You're in contact with another person and the life of another person. You balance that life, and hopefully, end up giving it meaning." The downside is that these emotionally charged roles often send her spiralling between moods. When researching for The Bone Collector, she felt herself becoming dark and morose after looking through dozens of photos of murder victims.

"I didn't realise how much it affected me until afterwards," she says. "My character &endash; the rookie cop &endash; is so hurt by what's going on the world, that I could feel myself becoming upset and disillusioned. In her case, she may track down the killer, but then she has to gather enough evidence to bring charges and try him. And then he might well get out on bail and kill again. My life is so great, yet so many lives are so sad. The whole thing depressed me."

Girl, Interrupted was a similarly troubling experience. The film is based on the true story of Susanna Kaysen who was committed to a mental institution in the 60's, and is played by Winona Ryder (who was also an executive producer). Susanna's sanity is tested by the dangerous allure of her wild fellow inmate, Lisa, Played by Jolie. "There I was playing a sociopath &endash; and they often become serial killers!" Jolie grimaces. "My character is living on impulse, from day to day. It does make you understand what that life might be like. Because your free will is taken away… your world closes in on you."

"You end up being so affected by other people around you. You see their mistakes, their lies, whether they're covering up things and exactly what is going on in their minds. You focus totally on others.

"But the worst thing for my character, is that despite the shock treatments, the drugs and always being told she's out of her mind, there really was nothing wrong with her. She just couldn't adjust to accepting a mediocre life. I suppose there are always elements of you in the characters you play. I really admire her spirit."

While the role has Jolie tipped for an Oscar, she is refusing to take the speculation too seriously. Plus, she suspects Oscars are often chosen to reward the famous, rather than advance the craft. "Look, it's great to be recognised for a project that you've worked really hard in," she says. "But often you wonder how real that recognition is. Does it mean this thing is better or more important than something else? You just sometimes feel as if it's not deserved."

An Oscar win also brings enormous pressure to play the game, and Jolie's not one to dance to anyone else's tune. When a US magazine approached her recently to feature the "real" Angelina Jolie, she was amazed by the decision to photograph her on the beach. "I'm from New York, I never go to the beach," she says. She was subsequently pictured wearing a $7000 gown &endash; "On the beach," she squeals &endash; and walking a dog, which was introduced to her for the occasion. "Then they wrote that I was an unhappy person," laughs Jolie. "They we're right!"

Right now, however, Jolie has no reason to be unhappy. She's preparing to play another femme fatal as the lead in Dancing in the Dark, under direction of Michael Christopher, with whom she worked on Gia. Following this project, there's Gone in 60 Seconds &endash; a story about car thieves with Nicolas Cage. Plus, having visited Australia, she's keen to come back and work here. A close friend of Cate Blanche &endash; with whom she worked in Pushing Tin &endash; Jolie was dazzled both by the place and Blanche's talk of the country's creative atmosphere for actors. Add to that her ambition to also direct and write &endash; when she can find the time.

"I went back to school to learn how to direct, and working on projects with my brother taught me a lot," Jolie explains. "I'm also doing some writing at the moment. It's going well, but my problem is that I've got a whole bunch of characters I know what they eat and drink and how they live, but I don't seem to have a plot for them at the moment."

She stops, throws her head back and laughs. Yes, she's quite aware that her critics often accuse her of losing her own plot &endash; blood on her wedding shirt, the Timothy Hutton grief and all that black leather in the baking sun! Jolie, however, doesn't care. "I'm having fun doing this work," she says. "People will always say all sorts of stuff. Let them. I'm enjoying my life."