Kim Basinger is nobody's fool. Since abandoning a successful cover-girl career for a life in the movies, she has beaten the model-turned-actress syndrome with an electric body of work that includes such TV fare as a movie of the week called Kate: Portrait of a Centerfold and film roles in The Man Who Loved Women, The Natural, Never Say Never Again and her latest, Fool for Love, with Sam Shepard. Since Basinger and Contributing Editor David Rensin recently stayed in the same New York hotel, we asked Rensin to go upstairs and take his tape recorder. Said he, "Kim wore gray sweat pants, high-topped tennies and a loose cotton shirt. She looked great. She moved constantly on the couch, doing stretches, burying her face in the cushions when she laughed, and kept the energy level high. I should have known. Just before we began, she flashed that unforgettable swollen-lipped smile and said, quite unexpectedly, 'Ask anything. I don't care what you ask me.' So I did. "

Q 1

PLAYBOY: When was the last time you were a fool for love? And what did it feel like?

Kim Basinger: [Laughs] This is terrible. The last time I was a fool for love was when I married him. [Points to the bedroom, where her husband, Ron, is resting] That's the last time I'll ever be a fool for love. But it feels great--fun and exciting. You have to be a little touched in the head to be a fool for love, crazed out of your mind. I'm very much that way, anyway. I don't want to put restraints on myself. I was born a fool [laughs]. Maybe I got it from my mother. She's a little touched.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: A few years ago, you appeared with a little-known actor named Don Johnson in the miniseries From Here to Eternity. You and Johnson played lovers. What are his secrets? What's he have that other guys don't?

Kim Basinger: Pale-pink shirts. My God, he looks beautiful on Friday night. But Don was always cute to me. Miami Vice has changed his image, but there was always something very pleasantly humorous about him, and he amused himself through the tough year, because he had this sense that it was just a matter of time. But that waiting can really be a bitch.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: How did you cope with the model-turned-actress syndrome?

Kim Basinger: I never wanted to be a model and never, never planned on it. But I was 17 when I moved to New York from Georgia, and I had to make some money. I discovered that I could make a pretty good living being a model. I figured it was better than being a waitress, because I was a scared little girl who didn't want to be walking around at night in the city. Several critics have since written unkind things about me because I am an attractive blonde girl who just happens to have blue eyes. It's like being told I can't be accepted in their world because I'm not just plain-looking. They're not ready to give me a chance, and I think that's sick.

I have always wanted to be an actress. That's all I've ever cared about. I was so frustrated as a model that I was out of my mind. But I never went along with the "be a model, take a little acting class" routine. I knew what I wanted--and that I would fight to get it.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Have you ever used your celebrity to get something that you wanted?

Kim Basinger: Oh, sure. It would be bullshit if anybody said he didn't. I use it in little things all the time, like for getting into my favorite Italian restaurant. Of course, sometimes people don't know who I am and they say, "Hey, pal, go to hell."

When I first came to New York, I was here for the Miss Breck contest--that's what started off all this modeling stuff. And they gave, each girl two wishes--things like Whom would you most like to meet? Everyone said Martha Washington or Eleanor Roosevelt--somebody dead. It just didn't make any sense. So I called my daddy, and he suggested [former] Mayor Lindsay and Eileen Ford. I got both my wishes. I met Lindsay, and Eileen asked me to sign with her agency.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: How do you get along with your mirror?

Kim Basinger: I won't deal with a mirror. When you're making a movie, you're always brought a mirror right before doing a take. But people have been told to not even come near me with one. I get an anxiety attack. I say, "I don't care what's wrong with me. I don't care." It goes back to the modeling thing. I wasn't a good model. I was lucky to make money at it. I couldn't stare in the mirror and care about myself 24 hours a day. I felt like I was wearing gloves wrong side out.