Time flies when you're having fun with 24's foxy, fearless daugher-in-peril, Elisha Cuthbert.

BY PAUL SEMEL

We had some bad days, but none as unremittingly crappy as the one Elisha Cuthbert had all last season on 24, Fox's inventive thriller that devoted each episode to one hour of a labyrinthine assassination plot. As the rebellious daughter of counterterrorism agent Kiefer Sutherland, Elisha was kidnapped, shot at, arrested, and kidnapped again for good measure. Plus, she spent most of the season in the same strategically tattered T-shirt. "Someone's got to do it," shrugs the 19-year-old Canadian cutie. "I was the one with breasts, so that was my job, to look good." Danger and conspiracy no doubt find Elisha again in the new, similarly constructed second season, though she says her outfit will be "ad little more sophisticated, but still sexy." We're counting down the minutes.

All your troubles on 24 last season started when you sneaked out of the house to meet an older guy. Did you draw on experience?
I couldn't. My family had a Great Dane, and if you made a move he'd freak out. I kind of let my friends do the rebellious thing and lived vicariously through them. The worst I ever did was get drunk when I was about 16.

You didn't even throw tantrums when you were a child model?
I mostly did catalog stuff and kids' clothes, so I wasn't exactly jetting off to Paris and hanging out with rock stars. But I did get cookies — I remember that. I was also a foot model. I had hot feet.

A few years later you hosted the show Popular Mechanics for Kids. Can you overhaul a transmission?
Oh, yeah, I'm a handy chick. I could be a mechanic after doing that show. I can fix a fan belt; I can change brakes, depending on how bad they are. they had me doing things like sitting in an F-15 and going aboard an aircraft carrier. I was a total tomboy for four years.

And you gave all that up for Hollywood glamour?
I decided to give L.A. six months. I figured that if I didn't get something in six months, I'd go back. And I was actually ready to go back, I was over it, when the script for 24 showed up.

Does working on a show with so many conspiracies make you check under your bed at night?
I'm into that stuff, but I was a real freak when I was a kid. I thought aliens were going to come after me. If I saw something in the sky, I wouldn't make direct eye contact,because I thought it would take me away. [laughs]

Aliens, Hollywood producers — same thing. Can you stay up around the clock, like in the show?
I'm actually more productive at night. The morning freaks me out for some reason, which helps on 24, since half the shooting is at night. It forces me to be a vampire. I have no problem going to bed at four in the morning and waking up at four in the afternoon.

Do you watch 24 at home?
No, because when you're shooting a show like 24, where everything has to be consistent with the episode before — the way you look, the way you react to everything — you don't want to watch and say, "Ooh, I don't like that," and try to change things in the middle.

So what shows do you watch?
I like Crime & Punishment, because they have real court cases and you feel like you're part of a jury. I'm also hooked on Unsolved Mysteries and Dateline.

Jeez, you must get only two channels or something.
No, I have DirecTV. And when I called to figure out what channels I wanted, the lady on the line was, like, "Would you like any porn channels?" But they cost $15 extra a month. That's bullshit!

So you would have gotten the porn if it were cheaper?
Yeah, just to be cool. So when people were flipping through, they'd be, like, "Wow, she has every channel." It's a materialistic thing. If you've got porn, you've got money. With cable, I mean.

Are old beaus coming out of the woodwork now that you're on TV?
Actually, I've had random guys from back home call: "Hi, I never spoke to you in high school. Want to hang out?" But it's me who usually approaches a guy. Except this one guy who tried to pull my bikini string. It was quite embarrassing, but thenI went on a date with him.

That cad. Have the 24 creators already told you what they're going to toss at you this season?
I hear rumors of me having a job baby-sitting some kid, which scares me.