Try following this tricky path: Because Chris Carter was nice enough to open her car door at last year's Emmys, Lucy Lawless is now walking around naked on "The X-Files."

It's not quite that simple - and editing will cover Lawless's pride - but that's the gist of the tale for the former Xena.

"I had always carried a torch for Chris ever since he ran across the log jam of limousines at the end of the last Emmys to open the door for me and my co-star," Lawless says during a telephone conversation from her home in New Zealand. "It just seemed like such a gracious thing for such a big man to do for people who were relative nobodies. So, I had a soft spot for him after that."

Carter didn't forget that meeting, either.

A few months later, he tracked her down to Hawaii while she was on vacation and extended an invitation to be on "The X-Files," of which he is co-creator and executive producer.

Ask about her character, which will appear in the season's first two episodes, and Lawless laughs before explaining: "She wanders around without any clothes on, causing trouble.

"Make sure you put that in the bold type in your newspaper."

Seems like a role tailor-made for the 5-foot-10 Lawless, who is known for her made-for-TV body anyway, hard, shapely and statuesque.

Why her character likes romping in the buff is as much a mystery to her as anything special agents Scully and Doggett have faced on "The X-Files."

"I don't know why she does that," Lawless says, "but it looks good on screen."

She isn't being prideful in her assessment. A body double is used for the so-called "nude" scenes (though TV editing will carefully shadow what they don't want you to see).

"The X-Files" season premiere is at 9 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 11 on Fox.

Her brief stint on "The X-Files" is the latest turn for the former star of Herculean adventure series "Xena, Warrior Princess," which ran for six years in syndication around the world.

When the show was winding down a year ago - the last episode aired in June - Lawless was determined not to vanish professionally.

She has always emerged in the most unexpected projects, such as a wacky prostitute on the NBC sitcom "Just Shoot Me" last year and as Rizzo in the Broadway production of "Grease" in 1997, among other things.

She has new clarity about her priorities and her projects since "Xena," the show that brought her celebrity worldwide, ended.

"It's not that I didn't know what mattered in life," she says, "but it came into crystalline clarity when the show stopped, and (th

ose priorities) are your family, your friends and your health. "I also learned you need to do what you do because you love the process of it and not because of an end result, to be an actor because you love acting and not because you want to be a star."

Don't get her wrong - "It's lovely to be a star," she'll admit, "but if that is your goal from the start then you're kind of doomed anyway."

After all these years, Lawless, who is married and has two children, is astounded by her fans' devotion.

"They'll take up your causes because they know how much it means to you," she says. "I am amazed anyone who doesn't know me personally would want to do that."

Does she feel like a star? She giggles at the notion. "Today, I do," she says, "because it is beautiful weather here."

Most of the time, though, "I never feel like a star. When people ask for my autograph, I can't why they want a little scribble of ink. What could it possibly mean to them?

"It's not embarrassing. It's humbling in a way because you know you're nothing special and yet other people derive some sort of benefit from that little scribble of ink."

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