It's strange to hear Summer Bishil speak in a 13-year-old's voice -- high-pitched, tentative, as if determined to render herself a cipher.

Bishil is actually 20, and was 18 when she starred as the lead Jasira in Towelhead, the provocative new film from Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball. But she used the eerily accurate adolescent voice for this tale of a 13-year-old Lebanese American girl's coming of age in Houston, during the first Iraq war.

Towelhead, which opens in late September in South Florida, explores Jasira's burgeoning sexuality and the fear it instills in her Lebanese single father who wishes she'd remain 9, and the desire it stirs in Jasira's next-door neighbor, a 35-year-old Army reservist played by Aaron Eckhart.

To some, the film -- with its comic-horrific tone -- will be shocking, but to Bishil, it was a relief to find a part that not only suited her ethnically but actually resonated with her.

''It was like, finally, I'm reading something that holds a lot of truth in it and means something. I was so relieved,'' she says, speaking in her regular voice, which is about an octave lower. ``I was really attached to (Jasira). It wasn't so much that I had gone through what she had gone through because I never did, but I understand her quest for understanding of herself and the people around her. And not having full control over her life. Over her body. Over her decisions. And not knowing what it means to own them.''

Bishil plays Jasira not as a budding Lolita, but as an inquisitive naif. ''Just because she's provocative doesn't mean she's not innocent,'' Ball says. ``Just because a child is sexually curious or is looking for pleasure or a sense of power in her existence doesn't mean they're not innocent. (Summer) really got that.''

Ball had to raise money privately to make Towelhead because, despite his talent and pedigree, every studio passed. 'The kind of response we heard is, `We love the script but we have no idea how to market this' and 'I can't possibly make this movie. I have daughters,' '' Ball says.

Warner Independent ultimately picked up the film when it was titled Nothing Is Private. Ball later went with Towelhead, the title of the Alicia Erian novel on which the film is based.

The filmmakers screened the film for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in November, Ball says, and no one complained about its content, but more recently, the Greater Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations asked Warner Bros. to change the film's title, which is considered a racial slur.

`A PAINFUL WORD'

The studio has declined. ''I understand that it's a painful word to hear,'' Ball says. ``I understand it's shocking to the senses. That's the point. That's why Alicia chose to call the book that.''

Like her character, Bishil is a uniquely American cultural blend -- part Indian, part Hispanic, part Caucasian. As a child, she lived in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, but spoke only English. ''I didn't really know I was Indian until I was in my teen years. I thought I was Saudi Arabian. I thought I was Arab,'' she said, noting that her father went off every day to work in traditional Arab garb. After Sept. 11, she and her brother and sister and her American mother moved to a Mormon community near San Diego and she attended a regular public high school for a week.

''I hated it,'' Bishil says. ``I was called a whore on the first day of school, and somebody said they thought my dad funded terrorism. I just knew that nobody was ever going to want to be my friend there. I had panic attacks the first year of my life here.''

Ultimately, the family moved to Arcadia, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her mom home-schooled Bishil, who says it was her passion for acting that ultimately helped her assimilate to America.

'I always wanted to act. In Saudi Arabia, I would watch movies sometimes too adult for me like Pretty Woman and Edward Scissorhands. . . . As soon as we came to L.A., I thought, `I'm here. I want to do it.' It was something that helped me adjust.''

Her mother drove her to auditions. She landed parts primarily in Disney Channel fare until Ball discovered her during an extensive casting search.

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