BODY'S RESTLESS MOTION

Eric Stoltz is a slacker with a conflict: He says he’s lazy, but his actions betray him. Or maybe his agent is to blame. Since his face-effacing 1985 lead in Mask, the offers keep rolling in, and Stoltz, 33, keeps saying yes. ”It’s the American way, isn’t it?” asks the veteran of 25 films. ”I’m out to do as much work in as little time as possible.” Since August, Stoltz has appeared in more movies than even Tommy Lee Jones. He starred as a wayward safecracker in Killing Zoe and a stressed-out newlywed in Sleep With Me, and was a put-upon drug dealer in Pulp Fiction and the March girls’ staunch companion in Little Women. This month, Rob Roy has him traveling the Scottish highlands with Liam Neeson. ”Wherever the jobs are I pitch my tent,” says Stoltz, who is an actor concerned more with finding interesting work-like playing an angel in the metaphysical God’s Army, due Aug. 25-than scoring Hollywood’s big-buck payoffs. This may keep him from attaining leading man status, but it hasn’t stopped him from dreaming. His fantasy: another collaboration with his live-in love Bridget Fonda (1993’s Bodies, Rest & Motion was their first), requiring ”only daytime scenes-with a great director, no wardrobe changes, shot in Hawaii.” Or better yet, ”a project where we’re talked about throughout the film but have one big, interesting scene and get paid a lot of money for it.” Not that reality’s so bad. This summer, Stoltz and Fonda are hoping to stir from their New Mexico home to begin filming Stained Glass, a black comedy about married life by Neal Jimenez (codirector of The Waterdance, which starred Stoltz). With Stoltz cropping up in the not-too-distant future on NBC’s Mad About You as Helen Hunt’s old flame and in the thinking-dog movie Fluke, the comedy Kicking and Screaming, the mystery Blow, and the now-filming musical Grace of My Heart, it seems like action is the only gap in the actor’s resume. Though Stoltz doesn’t rule anything out, the idea of pumping up for a part leaves the wiry actor cold. ”Uhhhgg,” he moans, then mulls, ”I’m more interested in imperfection. On the other hand, I might just be justifying my laziness because there’s nothing I would hate more than having to exercise.”