Having It All, and Showing It Too

Even though that Perfect Storm role was chaste (since her man was lost at sea), it led to Adrian Lyne's steamy Unfaithful, in which she cheats on Richard Gere. All of a sudden, the bar was raised. "After Perfect Storm, there was that to live up to, there was more expected of me," she admits. She more than met the challenge by earning her first Oscar nomination, an honor she calls "a dream that you don't expect to dream."

Her next role was as different as could be, as she played a divorcee who runs off to Italy in Audrey Wells's Under the Tuscan Sun, based on the Frances Mayes best-seller. Lane went from steamy to sweetheart in less than a year, but was just as big a box office superstar.

"I don't know why things come to me," she confesses. "I'm affected by what I've done last, so I want it to be something different than I've done recently."

Now, at 40, she's even trying out what she calls "sexy mom roles." She has the drama Fierce People due in April, in which she plays a drug-addicted mother who takes her son off to a rich man's estate and gets him mixed up with their nefarious goings-on. And then she's back to a sexy lover part in Truth, Justice and the American Way, playing the girlfriend of TV Superman George Reeves (Ben Affleck) in a story exploring the actor's mysterious death. Soon she's off to shoot Killshot, based on Elmore Leonard's novel.