CATHERINE ZETA JONES

Picture this: Steven Spielberg is watching Titanic, and he can't take his eyes off the striking brunette. The next day, he calls her agent and sets up a meeting. She visits the set of The Lost World, and four days later, the actress is off to Mexico to make The Mask of Zorro, a swashbuckling romantic comedy with Antonio Banderas.

Kate Winslet, perhaps? Nope, Catherine Zeta Jones. The Titanic Spielberg saw was a made-for-TV story with Jones and George C. Scott that aired more than a year ago. "He wanted to meet me, just have a chat," the 28-year-old actress recalls from her rented Los Angeles home. "I was like, 'I can't believe I'm sitting here with this dinosaur head and Steven Spielberg.' "

Since Spielberg's Amblin production company is making Zorro, Zeta Jones was able to step right in. But before going in front of the cameras, she had to undergo four weeks of training in sword fighting, Spanish dialects and horseback riding.

And now that she's signed as the female lead opposite Sean Connery in Fox's $100 million The Entrapment, she'll have to learn sleight of hand--the pair are cat burglars in an action romance.

But for the Welsh-born Zeta Jones, who grew up just 10 miles down the road from Zorro costar Anthony Hopkins' home, her focus for now is the red-hot role with Banderas. "It's very much a sexual duo," she says. "We're like Scarlett and Rhett." Now, there's a film we give a damn about.

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