(Sept. 26, 1997) -- Mimi Leder was as surprised as anyone when she got tagged to direct The Peacemaker.

After all, it's the first movie from the new DreamWorks studio, and it's a big-time action flick. Leder's only experience was directing TV shows such as ER.

But Steven Spielberg picked her personally -- which is akin to King Arthur tapping Lancelot on the shoulder with Excalibur. Spielberg, you'll recall, is one of the founding heads of DreamWorks. Leder says Spielberg knew her work because his other company, Amblin, produces ER, and she's won two Emmys for her work on the popular NBC drama.

"He called me and said he had a huge action-adventure he wanted me to direct," Leder said in a recent telephone conversation from Los Angeles. "I asked him what made him think I could direct action. He said I do it every day on ER.

"This was the moment I was waiting for."

Completing the ER connection was George Clooney, who had already been signed for the male lead in The Peacemaker. "George and I had a great relationship," she says. "And it continued on this film. He's really smart, as a person and an actor."

Although she was surprised by Spielberg's call, she didn't hesitate. "Everything I've done in the last 10 years brought me to this moment."

Leder says she was willing to learn the things she didn't already know. For example, a major sequence in The Peacemaker involves trains racing and colliding in Eastern Europe.

"What I didn't know about trains, I learned. I also fell in love with the whole romanticism of trains."

One thing she didn't factor in was the added pressure of making the first, eagerly anticipated theatrical release from DreamWorks. "I wouldn't allow myself to feel the pressure while I was making the movie. But now? I'm feeling it a lot.

"But there's always pressure with any project, because it's like having a baby. You want everybody to love your baby."

Leder also insists that, despite the high-powered credentials of DreamWorks founders Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, they didn't interfere. "It was great," she said. "They let me make my movie. They never were around" on the European locations.

"DreamWorks is run by filmmakers, and they respect their filmmakers and let them do their job," she says, adding that the completed version of The Peacemaker is definitely her cut. "Of course, Steven gave me a few notes during the editing, and they were very good notes."

Leder says her decade of work in television was a wonderful training ground. "My work on China Beach and ER were like making little movies. You prep in seven days, you shoot 'em in eight, and you edit them in four. "And I'll go back to television, or wherever there's a good script.

Born in New York City but raised in Los Angeles, Leder attended Los Angeles City College and was the first woman accepted as a cinematography student at the American Film Institute. She began her directing career with an episode of LA Law.

Up next, she said, is Deep Impact. "It's about a comet on a collision course with Earth." But, she insists, the film will offer more than the standard disaster flick. "It's more in the On the Beach mode, with characters deciding what to do with their lives when they know they only have so long to live."

And then, after two action-oriented films, Leder wants to try something personal.

"I have a picture in development called Sentimental Journey, based on a script my father wrote. It's an epic love story about my father and mother. He was a medic in Patton's army (in World War II), and my mother was in Auschwitz. They met when the U.S. Army liberated the concentration camp.

"It is going to be a strong, emotional journey."