IAN SPELLING NYT SYNDICATE THERE are bigger stars out there in Hollywood, but few are as happy as Emmanuelle Chriqui.

At 33 she’s busier than ever, with a great role on the television series Entourage, a guest stint on the hotly anticipated Showtime series The Borgias and three films on the way.

Oh, and she’s still incredibly gorgeous, enough to land atop AskMen.com’s Top 99 Women list in 2010.

“I’m feeling now, more than ever, that I’m entering the most exciting time of my career thus far,” the actress says.

“It’s been a journey.

I’m very pleased with how everything has happened and continues to happen.

My career spans over a decade, and I’m still here.” Even better, she has a life.

Chriqui can come and go as she pleases from her Los Angeles home.

She is recognised just enough by fans and not hounded by tabloid photographers.

Such good fortune, she says, is a combination of elements conscious and not.

“Consciously I avoid all that Hollywood stuff as well as I can,” she says, speaking by telephone from Los Angeles.

“We’re talking about the last decade, and over that time we’ve seen this social media go crazy,” Chriqui says.

‘It’s been a little bit of a torture for me, because I need to jump in and I need to go with the times, but I need to do it on my own terms so that I don’t feel compromised.

I’ve forayed into the tweeting world, just last week, actually, but it’s very specific and I’m managing in a way where I don’t feel compromised.

“I guess that’s been my secret weapon over the years, honouring my choice to not let myself be compromised.” Chriqui’s latest film, Elektra Luxx, is all about being compromised – and about compromising positions.

A sequel to writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez’s Women in Trouble (2009), Elektra Luxx follows the continuing adventures of Elektra (Carla Gugino), a retired porn star who is pregnant and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life.

Among the many people slipping in and out of Elektra’s orbit are her pals, call girl Bambi (Chriqui) and aspiring porn star Holly (Adrianne Palicki), and Cora (Marley Shelton), a flight attendant who joined the 30,000-foot club with Nick (Josh Brolin), Elektra’s recently deceased rock-star boyfriend and baby daddy.

Back in Women in Trouble, in fact, Nick died while having sex with Cora, and Cora turns up in Elektra’s life to offer her the much-sought-after lyrics to Nick’s songs – which are mostly about Elektra – if she’ll seduce Cora’s fiancee (Justin Kirk).

And there’s more, including a sex blogger (Joseph Gordon- Levitt), a beautiful cashier (Malin Akerman) who adores him and even the Virgin Mary (Julianne Moore).

“Bambi is the most fun character ever, in every way,” Chriqui says.

“Sebastian just writes us these characters that we get to dive in and play.

That’s the beauty of what Sebastian has done.

It’s like he’s dangling a little candy.

You think, ‘Here’s a movie about porn stars and sexy women,’ but guess what? They’re smart and they’re sensitive and they’re complicated.

It just becomes a day in the life of these incredible women.” The connection between Chriqui and Gutierrez is obviously quite strong, as they’ve worked together several times.

Likewise Chriqui and Gugino, who is Gutierrez’ longtime partner, are best friends who have acted with each other in several films and on Entourage.

It can’t be denied, however, that Elektra Luxx is a sequel to a film few people saw or even heard of.

It’s not necessary to have seen Women in Trouble to appreciate Elektra Luxx, but it sure would help to have done so.

“Women in Trouble was a passion project,’’ Chriqui says.

“It was the most gratifying experience for me in a really long, long time.

That made it worth it.

Yeah, not that many people saw Women in Trouble, but the people who saw it really appreciated it.

And for me the shoot was 12 or 15 days of another amazing creative experience.” If all goes as planned, Chriqui, Gutierrez, Gugino and several of the other Women in Trouble players will return for a third story about Elektra and the people in her life.

In the meantime Chriqui recently joined Gutierrez and Gugino, along with Rosario Dawson, Danny De Vito, Josh Hartnett, Zachary Quinto and more, to shoot Girl Walks into Bar.

The film will be released over the Internet later this year.

Also in the can is 5 Days of August, a war drama with Chriqui, Rupert Friend and Val Kilmer that is still seeking a distributor.

The actress also has filmed three late-first-season episodes of the upcoming Showtime drama The Borgias.

Chriqui will appear as Sancia, a Neapolitan duchess who marries a 12-year-old Borgia (Aidan Alexander) but fools around with one of his older brothers.

The show, which stars Jeremy Irons, will premiere on April 3. Starting in April, Chriqui will return to the set of Entourage to film that show’s eighth and final season.

Chriqui has played Sloan, the nearly perfect, on-again/off-again girlfriend of Eric (Kevin Connolly), since Season 2 of the HBO comedy, and admits that she isn’t ready to stop.

“I’m devastated,” the actress says.

‘It’s been so great.

I want to see Sloan and Eric together.

I have such a soft spot for those two, aside from the fact that I play Sloan.

They’ve had this push-and-pull, tumultuous relationship, but clearly these two love each other and they just can’t stop trying to make it work.

It would be nice to see them make it work, finally.

“But I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not.” Mulling over her spate of diverse roles in diverse projects, most notably the romantic comedy On the Line (2001) and the Adam Sandler farce You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008), Chriqui says that she has no real complaints.

“I want to do everything, everything,” she says.

‘I feel like this is the tip of the iceberg.

It’s an exciting time, like I was talking about before.

It’s a constant journey, I’m in it for the long haul and it just keeps getting better and better as the years go by.” Chriqui concludes.