To the outside world, Academy-Award® winner Susan Sarandon appears to be a well-adjusted, politically active luminary, but could her latest turn as exceedingly rich tobacco heiress Doris Duke in HBO Films' 'Bernard and Doris' hint at a wilder side?

"I think most people have contradictions," the actress says, "but when you're that wealthy, maybe you're just able to indulge the contradictions more. I notice it with people who become movie stars. In the beginning they seem one way, and then as they get more and more power, their true taste becomes much more clear."

The actual nature of the relationship between Duke and the gay butler who eventually took control of her estate, Bernard Lafferty (played by Ralph Fiennes), remains a mystery, but the film speculates at an intimacy that grew between the unlikely companions. "I'm interested in love stories," the actress says, "because I feel that two people reaching out and becoming intimate - even if it's not in a sexual way - is one of the most courageous things you can possibly do. Whether it's two women, or a mother and a child, or two friends, or lovers ... 'The Client,' 'Thelma & Louise,' 'Dead Man Walking' - for me, they're always love stories."