Diane Lane's not the sort of actress one immediately associates with genre films. Sure, she's made a few sci-fi flicks here and there--Streets of Fire, Judge Dredd (shudder), and the upcoming Jumper--but she's never really been a scream queen. Nevertheless, the Oscar-nominated star found herself entering the deadly world of a serial killer in her latest film, Untraceable, in which she plays a secret service agent playing cat-and-mouse with someone committing live murders on the internet, and increasing the savagery and frequency of those murders as more people log on to view them. Lane spoke with us last week in Los Angeles about her foray into fear, and her real-life take on violence and the internet. [Warning: The following interview contains spoliers. Read on at your own risk!]

Given that this is the first thriller you've headlined, it's interesting your character doesn't become a supercop or superwoman. She has her hands tied for most of the picture. Was that tough for you, or do you like that she was more human?

I'm very uncomfortable with superheroes. ?Hero? is already enough of a stretch. ?Superhero? is... I don't know. I'll be seeing you at the Jumper press junket and then I'll have to eat my words! I think it's all contextual. I tried to explain to my daughters that it's not me. My daughter got on to me about, "You were the woman who cheated in Unfaithful!" ?Um... yeah... Can I drop you off at the carpool or down the block from the school, then? I can't be seen with you?? She hasn't seen the film, but she's judging me very harshly for it and I said, "It's contextual, dear... It's not like your mom's on the internet doing anything.? And if I am, God help her because...

I can imagine an endless amount of acceptable story where ?hero? would be the case but in this story? I would have liked the film to have other things in it, other elements. At one point I was begging them to see if they could make the character of my daughter older, someone who is on the internet already and someone I have to worry about more and the audience would be concerned about.

Why didn't they do that?

Because it would have taken time, and we have to tell our story. Otherwise it would have been two hours and forty minutes! This is not that movie. So it would have required some work to incorporate it. There was another element I wish we could have gotten in there which is the humour these FBI agents have in their job, which they need to survive the workaday exposure to evil. You've got to be careful because you don't want to seem callous or misconstrue for the audience that the agents don't care. But it's a plot-driven story and it's a smart film because it's not trying to preach or teach.

Did doing the research for this film open your eyes to the scary world out there on the internet?

Enough. But I didn't need much! I'm a delicate flower. I don't do violence well, pain well, sufferance well, when it comes to witnessing it. I have a really hard time. I was seven years old in Paris, touring with a theatre company and in France they didn't have the MPAA or the FCC and you remember that monk who set himself on fire to protest Vietnam? Well, they showed the whole thing as the newsreel prior to Bambi or something. I was, like, "Where are we? What country... Get me out!" I never recovered. I saw Clockwork Orange when I was nine years old by accident because I was with a bunch of hippies in Denmark... So this puritanical, precious American commodity of childhood is a little overrated because you've got to prepare people for all sorts of things?cultures, perceptions, tastes. And you form yourself by what you say no to. Boundaries create the person, and mine are very high when it comes to the internet! So I didn't need to see much. But I got exposed to the long suffering of these cyber officers?they have to take breaks for their mental health and just get out of town, go stare at some trees.

Are you monitoring your daughter more on the internet after this movie?

Well, after all these questions today I've become really worried that I'm a shitty parent! But hope, faith, and prayer are part of parenting too, because you can't be everywhere. It's not a question of ?if,? it's a question of when they are going to encounter something that will wound them psychically, and that's when you need to be around as a parent, to explain. I'm the tour guide. I'm not here to be a moat?yes, of course I want to protect my kid, but I don't want a hothouse human being, not aware of the world around. She's seen movies I wouldn't see! I'm telling you, at rich kids' birthday parties? I'm like, "They're screening WHAT? They didn't call the parents?that's an R-rated movie! I wanna talk to the parents.?

How long did you have to hang upside down for the film?s finale?

Oh, I don't know... Should I be talking about that? Yoga came in handy! [Laughs.] It was about twenty times more than you see on screen because it takes a while to get the footage, over several days.

Did you like the fact that you saved yourself?

That was very much appealing. Also the lack of misogyny. In fact, at one moment the villain says, "Based on how I see the treatment of women, I imagine your demise will be very quick." So he's a student of psychology and human neuroses and he's a victim of it himself. Usually these people are hurt by something. So if you can get to the wound, you can start, but usually people are too busy causing injuries to get healed about anything!

What do you think has changed for young actresses these days? You know how tough the business can be, but is it too tough now?

There are a lot of issues? The media has quadrupled in size in terms of distributors, and the need for something on the conveyor belt is great. So they need something to put out. There used to be one rag mag and it was called that, and there are now twenty publications?and they're legit! I'm not going to get started with finger pointing, and who came first, the chicken or the egg: the appetite for destruction or the destruction. They need each other and I feel very compassionate towards anyone who's trying to grow up in the industry.

But you also "retired" when you were nineteen...

I love that! I'm forty-three this month and I "retired" at nineteen! I think I took a summer off and it grew like a mushroom into this "retirement". I did Streets of Fire and Cotton Club back to back and I was pretty exhausted because there was that feeding frenzy of producers talking about a hit movie and you almost start to believe them. I went to Georgia to be with my mom and not work for nearly a whole year. But in those days it was a big thing!

You never considered quitting?

Every job! Every time. I always think my last one is my last one. It's always a gambling game. This whole industry is addicted to the possibility that something like No Country for Old Men might happen to you, or Juno, or The Godfather. Nobody knows what makes a hit. To me, it's the attempt that's the fun. Once the film's done, it's over for me. I don't want to think about it... But I have to talk to you!