It's sheer intoxication

from the previous night's celebrations that followed a special preview of her new film, Virtual Sexuality.

''I am so hungover and I'm trying to speak and I can't even express myself,'' she apologises profusely.

But the movie kind of speaks for itself. In a teen comedy targeted at the Dawson's Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer mob, she plays 17-year-old Justine who is fed up with

the lack of success she has been having in losing her virginity. So she sets about creating her dream bloke with the help of a virtual reality machine.

Laura's parents, Alistair and Rose, were in the audience for the preview. For the big occasion, her trendy fortysomething dad wore a pair of cherry-red patent shoes designed to blind the unwary. ''My dad is really cool, but mum hates those shoes so much,'' Laura giggles. Did they enjoy the movie? ''They were quite surprised. They thought they might not like it because I said it was for 13 and

15-year-olds.''

In one scene in the back of a car, Justine has just given a knock-back to a bloke she met earlier. ''We've been going out for two hours and 24 minutes,'' the oaf snorts in a voice curdled with sarcasm. ''You frigid? A lesbian?'' Teenagers. Every day is a losing battle.

Poor Laura has been on the dreaded film promo tour since early May. She seems happy to have landed on home turf for the final lap in Glasgow. She says an iron constitution and a sense of humour have seen her through some freaky moments, noting: ''Sometimes I have been asked, 'what's your favourite type of guy?' But I don't really have a type of guy. I don't really think like that.

''Other times I just get drunk and just get into it. I find it hard. I want to be honest when they ask me questions. But I know some of the honest things I'll say might not be good and I'll get in trouble for saying them.''

The girl is outspoken, caustic, wickedly funny and refreshingly frank; publicist's nightmare, journalist's dream. She is also a real babe. Height 5ft 3in, brunette, green eyes, pale skin, lips as full as the ones Barbara Hershey paid money for.

Looking the way Laura does, she's got to be knocking blokes back with a baseball bat - right? ''I did have a boyfriend for a long time,'' she sighs. ''Relationships end all the time, don't they? It's not exactly happy when a relationship ends. You learn things about yourself. You learn to be kinder. You learn

to make your priorities. How to treat people with respect.''

She admits she has been drawn to actors for relationships because they are the ones she has spent most time with and got emotionally intimate

with quite quickly.

''You can make the mistake of confusing that

with reality. It's different when you are away on a film set and then you come back to real life. Most of my boyfriends have been actors. Some ways good and some

ways bad.''

In the old notion that work is the best medicine for things wrong in the private life, she has

thrown herself into a whole

series of pictures shot almost back to back. After Virtual Sexuality comes The Match,

a soccer comedy with Richard E Grant and Tom Sizemore. She plays Rosemary, childhood sweetheart of village milkman Willie (Max Beesley), who becomes embroiled in the annual grudge match between two rival pubs.

She has just finished filming Whatever Happened To Harold Smith, about a man with the powers of levitation, starring David Thewlis. Next year will see the release of possibly her breakthrough film - Titus, the screen version of Titus Andronicus, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange.

The film was a bit of an emotional pounding for Laura. ''I play Titus's daughter who gets raped by two brothers and then they cut out her tongue and chop off her hands and in the whole film I'm like . . . speechless,'' she gasps.

Laura has this way of getting into Method, you see, where she goes so deep into her part you'd need a forklift to get her out of there. It was pretty disturbing to witness, apparently.

''In Titus, because of the part I was playing, my behaviour became different, which was really quite a strange experience,'' she says. ''I thought: 'I don't like that.' I became more destructive. The girl hated herself and she ended up wanting to commit suicide. She is despairing and loses hope. I didn't get nearly as far down the line because nothing as bad has ever happened to me but I just touched a little bit on it and I was just very unhappy.

''I got through it. I think that taught me a lot. I feel a lot more together now than I did then. I think I was in a bit of a state and that is part of the reason why I got cast for it: I was in a bit of a strange way.''

She looks askance at the pot of coffee the waiter delivers, sighs, takes a couple of

drags from her cigarette and crushes it in

the ashtray.

''That's the thing . . . I can be quite destructive. I don't want to elaborate because mum and dad will read it. My behaviour

can be quite extreme sometimes, confusing

to myself.

''It's hard to control. I haven't worked that out yet. I suppose it's bloody discipline isn't and some vodka. My mum worries. She knows the business and knows it's all a bit bullshitty and a bit silly.''

l Virtual Sexuality opens tomorrow. The Match opens on July 9.

Male order: Laura Fraser, above and on opposite page, finds ''computer love'' biting in her latest venture, Virtual Sexuality

it, frigging getting a grip and not being a frigging arse and not being selfish.''

Heady stuff - but the ambition to be a performer has been there since she starred in her first play at Hillhead Primary School: Lulabelle and the Iron Bru Cafe. ''My dad wrote it. I was Lulabelle. There was this baddie called Black Bart who tried to take over the Irn Bru Cafe and turn it into a dirty saloon, and we fought against him.''

A stint at the Scottish Youth Theatre helped win her entry to the RSAMD, but she dropped out after a year.

''I didn't really enjoy drama school. I just found it a hard place to be and didn't really respect some of the ways they taught things. Didn't really believe in a lot of the teachers as people. There was just a lot of bitterness and jealousy there.

''But, talking to a lot of people from different drama schools, it's just the same thing [in those schools]. The fact is they don't teach you about film acting at drama school. They teach you how to stand, how to use your hands.''

It was while working on a BBC educational series that she met Peter Mullan, who cast her in his short film, Good Day for the Bad Guys.

Television parts followed, and she went on to make her feature debut in the gem Small Faces. She has also appeared opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in The Man in the Iron Mask.

She enjoys the work immensely but refuses to give herself up to the luvvie side of business. Thus she gets very antsy with some of her snotty-attitude

peers. ''Other actors are such a gossipy lot,'' she confides.

So what's the worst piece of gossip she has ever heard about herself? ''I was pronounced not difficult to work with but just a bit mad. It gets to me. They don't know me. Why are they saying that?

''They say, 'oh I thought you were going to be a complete shit'. So I say 'who said that?' You hear terrible things about people and then you meet them and they are lovely. You have just got to take people as you find them and just not listen to bullshit because actors just bitch, bitch, bitch.''

She finds it hard to generate much sympathy for the Brad Pitt wannabes who become obsessed with how they look. ''When you work with young guys 19 or 20, it's like the same as talking to a woman of that age now. Actors, especially, are obsessed with their weight. They talk the same as women. It's like totally androgynous now. I just don't have any expectations of guys anymore.''

She has no illusions about working on a film set, either. ''Film sets are an insane place to be. Just because of the whole status thing. When you are filming in Glasgow it's not quite like that. But on some sets there are people taking out their own problems on others, people abusing power. In life it goes on as well, but on a film set it is extreme.''

How does she handle that? ''You just have to laugh. I just try to treat everybody

with respect and behave with others as you would want them to behave with you. And try to be decent.''

Next month she is on a journey across the Pond, her first visit to Los Angeles for meetings with agents.

''I sometimes wonder where I'm going to end up living but it won't be Los Angeles,'' she says. ''I have heard it is a sick place and not real. Of course, there must be some real people there. I'm sure there are some nice people there. I am sure there are a lot of arses there as well.''

She stiffens. ''Look, this might be my hangover talking. I had some wine

Laura Fraser