SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL

In 1982, Antmania was sweeping the globe. The king of this new- wave frontier, a swaggering romantic named Adam Ant, had, in addition to twelve top 10 singles in England (including ''Goody Two Shoes,'' ''Stand and Deliver,'' and ''Prince Charming''), a penchant for wearing war paint and flamboyant pirate clothing. That theatricality, the British singer now says, ''was a defense mechanism-a sort of armor'' that encased his true feelings. Not anymore: This time it's personal. On his just-released 12th album, Wonderful, Ant sings from the heart about an ill-fated romance with a woman he will not name. ''(She) really changed my life, opened me up,'' says Ant, 40. Alas, she also dumped him. ''My feelings never changed. I'm just wrong for her,'' says the singer. ''I'm sensible enough to realize that you can love someone to death and that's not a very good thing.'' The man born Stuart Goddard has also had sense enough to take acting classes (with Ray Liotta and Daryl Hannah, under acting guru Harry Mastrogeorge), which have helped him overcome the built-in obstacles of his second career, acting. ''(Movie industry insiders think) music people are big box office poison. 'Oh, you're a singer? Oh, right, yeah,''' says Ant, who may have caught the bug from former girlfriends, actresses Jamie Lee Curtis and Amanda Donohoe (L.A. Law). Still, in his 16 films he's managed to make a transition from bad-guy roles-''which is what they do with everybody who has a Cockney accent''-to vampires and sailors. The latest, Drop Dead Rock (with Debbie Harry), offers Ant the opportunity to play a rock manager. ''It's kind of like a '90s Spinal Tap.'' Should his Wonderful take off, does the singer entertain any fantasies that the woman he's dedicated it to will come crawling back? ''I'm the one to come crawling,'' he laughs, before adding some food for thought, culled from the rigors of romance. ''Oscar Wilde said, 'Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes'-so I figure I'm pretty experienced now.''