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''GIRL,'' INSTRUMENTAL Ryder's a' pickin', Jolie's a' grinnin'

Suzanne Tenner

Mangold was finishing up the testosterone-loaded ''Cop Land'' when he got a call from Ryder, asking if he'd be interested in directing Susanna Kaysen's 1993 memoir of the author's nearly two-year stay in a mental hospital. Mangold said yes to the executive-producing star but asked permission to rewrite the script, which three screenwriters had already tried their hands at. ''My fear was that the project was headed to a touchy-feely Lifetime movie,'' he says. ''I wanted to make a woman's picture with balls.''

Jolie (''Gia'') also wanted to make the film, and begged for the part of Kaysen's ward mate: ''I'd read the book years before and had underlined most of my character,'' she says. ''I loved her [and] identified with her.'' The actors filmed the movie in a Harrisburg, Pa., mental institution and behaved accordingly. ''I thought it would be a very dark time for me, and in some ways it was,'' says Jolie, ''but I lived completely on impulse. If I wanted to kiss someone, I did, and if I wanted to throw something, I could.''

Says Mangold: ''Being on the set with mostly women was no different than my other features, except that Whoopi Goldberg [who plays Nurse Valerie] was constantly in search of the alpha female who would pull them into menstrual alignment.'' Which explains why she's the center square. BUZZ FACTOR: 6

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Posted Nov 16, 1999 | Order Article Reprints