When Emmanuelle Béart, talking to the Straight at last fall's Toronto International Film Festival, recalled playing a prostitute, she could just as easily have been describing life as an actor.

"Being paid to be the object of desire and fantasies and what it does to a human being to be in that position--[prostitutes] are incredible women because they have to be so strong, [but] they're fragile people too, you know. Because again there's this difference between their behaviour and what is inside their mind."

Béart was particularly drawn to the title role in Nathalie, which opens here Friday (September 3), because although her character is hired to seduce a husband (played by Gérard Depardieu), most of her scenes find her describing these encounters to his wife (Fanny Ardant), who set up the for-hire fling as a way of saving their marriage.