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IT'S not unusual for an actress to spend a year preparing for a major part in a movie - but Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi did so not knowing it she'd eventually land a role in "Babel," opening Friday.
The acclaimed drama stars Brad Pitt as an American tourist whose wife is shot on a trip to Morocco, but early reviews have singled out the Oscar-caliber, breakthrough performance of Kikuchi as a hyper-sexual deaf teenager who is connected to the tragedy half a world away.
"It was a role that spoke to me," Kikuchi, an ethereally beautiful 25-year-old who looks much younger, told The Post through an interpreter. "Though I knew it would be incredibly difficult for a person with hearing to prepare for."
Speaking by phone from Los Angeles, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu said he was initially determined to cast an actual deaf teenager in the role of Chieko, who has been traumatized by her mother's suicide.
While Inarritu was off shooting the bulk of the film in Morocco, Mexico and the U.S., a determined Kikuchi enrolled in a school for the deaf and spent months studying sign language and the nuances of deaf girls'experiences.
"I looked at a lot of deaf teenagers, several of whom appear in the film in other roles," says Inarritu. "But in the end the choices were never as good as Rinko.
"I've never seen an actress with that kind of commitment. I knew if I didn't give her the role, she would either kill me or commit suicide."
As Chieko, Kikuchi has a full frontal nude scene, as well as a sequence where she flirts with a boy by flashing him, sans panties, "Basic Instinct"-style.
"I never considered it exploitative, because it's an important part of the movie," Kikuchi said. "This is how Chieko communicates."
Because she has no scenes with Pitt, Kikuchi did not meet the actor and most of the rest of the cast until the movie's premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May - where she pretty much stole the show.
lou.lumenick@nypost.com
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