Mar 18, 2005  |  By: SARAH KELLOGG  | COMMENTS     

ANGELA ROBINSON makes the trip from near obscurity to Hollywood wunderkind look easy.

The lesbian director, writer and editor of the soon-to-be-released “D.E.B.S.,” Robinson has gone from toiling on the late shift editing somebody else’s film to helming a $70 million remake of a Disney children’s classic in just three years.

That she bursts on the scene with “D.E.B.S.,” her saucy tale of spy hijinks, lesbian love and kicky fashions, is no less extraordinary given that not so long ago she didn’t know whether to turn her idea into a movie or a comic book.

Even more astonishing for Robinson is that she’s fielding reporters’ questions about “D.E.B.S.” as she’s finishing post-production work on her second full-length film, Walt Disney Pictures’ “Herbie: Fully Loaded,” which stars Lindsay Lohan.

“It’s really insane,” says Robinson, 33. “The other day I looked around and there were all these people working with me. I mean it was surreal. I remember when there were just a few of us, and now I have a staff.”

“D.E.B.S.” hits movie screens around the country on March 25, opening here in Washington at Loews Dupont Circle.

Robinson still marvels that the film, a takeoff on “Charlie’s Angels” with a dash of “Clueless” and a smidge of “The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love” mixed in, found a home in Hollywood. After all, lesbian love stories and action adventure flicks aren’t two genres that usually click or get financed by studio execs.

“I think it’s difficult to make a movie with gay themes at all, but then to make it in Hollywood is even more amazing,” she says. “The new gauntlet for a gay filmmaker is to make a second film, and that’s what I’m doing now. Amazing.”

If Robinson’s a little gee-whiz about her success, forgive her. It’s still sinking in that she doesn’t have to do everything on the set anymore. There really are people who make the postcards, splice together the trailer and go get coffee.

“It’s never the moments you think it’s going to be that remind you that you’ve made it,” she says. “It’s these funny moments. I can’t tell you how excited I was to get the soundtrack album for “Herbie.” It had plastic wrap on it, and I just sat there and looked at the plastic wrap. I didn’t want to take it out.”

BUT DON’T THINK the plastic wrap is going to her head. Robinson isn’t interested in turning into another Hollywood sellout. She’s an auteur with a vision, and she’s determined to emulate the formula of her heroes Robert Rodriquez (“Spy Kids”) and Peter Jackson (“Lord of the Rings”), two filmmakers who didn’t sell their souls to work with major studios.

“I’m really inspired by filmmakers that come from independent roots and still work in the studio system,” says Robinson, who counts “Cabaret” and “Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark” as her most influential films. “When you look at their films, you know that a real auteur made them. My goal is to work on a huge scale, but with my particular vision.”

What’s that vision?

Well, first it’s got a sense of humor, tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek, thank you. Second, it doesn’t hurt if there’s a little action, as in high-wire, seat-of-the-pants adventure. And third, well, it would have to be her gay sensibility — call it drag queen on steroids.

“Angela is just one of the funniest people I know,” says Stacy Codikow, the founder of POWER UP, a Los Angeles nonprofit that helps finance and staff independent gay films. “She’s that rare combination of shyness and talent, completely secure in herself.”

It was POWER UP that awarded Robinson a grant in 2002 to make a 10-minute version of “D.E.B.S.” The film almost didn’t win that grant, because one of the judges thought its special effects might make the movie too pricey to produce.

Codikow said the rest of the panel of judges could see the promise in the girl-power story, the hip sensibility and the witty dialogue. Talent won out. Robinson was one of three filmmakers to win a grant that year.

“It’s such a crossover film,” Codikow explains. “It’s a mainstream, regular movie that has a lesbian relationship at its core. And she treats it as a matter of fact. Girls have lesbian relationships.”

If there’s a fairytale portion of Robinson’s story, it’s what happened next.

At the POWER UP premiere of the short film in November 2002, industry bigwigs, including Ilene Chaiken, the creator of “The L Word,” were bowled over. By the end of the evening, she had appointments with ...