Hot-blooded Kim Cattrall cools off with ‘Ice Princess’

Samantha does Disney — on ice, no less.

“I’m spending the summer inside a skating rink, all bundled up from neck to toes,” says Kim Cattrall, speaking from the Toronto film set of “Ice Princess,” her first acting assignment since HBO’s “Sex and the City” ended after six seasons.

Even more shocking: “No man in sight.”

Before “Sex,” the late-blooming actress seemed stuck in a B-grade rut. She did those twin heights of ‘80s hilarity, “Porky’s” and “Police Academy.” Later, she was in a Tom Hanks film; unfortunately, it was “The Bonfire of the Vanities.”

But when she entered her 40s, Cattrall hit a career climax as one of the bawdiest, naughtiest babes ever to go nude and talk rude on cable TV.

Her randy run as the extreme libertine Samantha Jones on “Sex and the City” just earned her a fifth Emmy nomination and plenty of tabloid ink over the years for her exploits onscreen (she averaged a conquest per episode) and off (rumored friction between her and series star Sarah Jessica Parker).

Now Cattrall, who turns 48 this month, is striking out on her own in life and at work.

“There has been a lot of change this year: The ending of the series. My divorce (from third husband Mark Levinson) becoming final,” she says. “I’m beginning to produce. I sold my apartment in New York, and my new apartment is waiting.”

And she’s doing a family film, of all things. “My niece and nephew are young and haven’t been able to see my work in the past six years,” she says. “This is a valentine to them.”

In the Disney flick, due in December, Cattrall plays a coach and single mom who pours her own thwarted figure-skating ambitions into a potential prodigy (Michelle Trachtenberg, the kid sis on TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”).

Taking on a polar-opposite role proved invigorating as she made the controversial decision to opt out of a “Sex and the City” feature film and pursue “Ice Princess” instead.

“For the first time in six years, I’ve gotten into another skin,” Cattrall says. “There is no comfort zone around you. It was amazingly freeing to play Samantha. I knew her inside and out. This woman is so different, blocked and under-realized, so cautious in how she leads her life.”

Cattrall hasn’t totally abandoned sex, she’s just exploring it in a more academic fashion. Through her own production company, Fertile Ground, she will spend the next eight months traveling to such locales as Pompeii, Cyprus and Dorset, England, to film “Sexual Intelligence,” a documentary for HBO that will air next year.

The film follows her best-selling book, co-written with Levinson, “Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm.”

“Without Samantha, I wouldn’t have had these amazing platforms to talk about so many things,” Cattrall says. ” ‘Sex and the City’ has made us all less shamed and guilty, more unconditional about sexuality. It’s a very powerful message.”

As for her own love life, she says: “I’m in love with working right now. … What’s most comforting to me is sleeping in bed alone.”

The birthday bunch

Cartoonist Tom Wilson (“Ziggy”) is 73. Actor-comedian Dom Deluise is 71. Blues musician Robert Cray is 51. Rapper Chuck D (Public Enemy) is 44. Rapper Coolio is 41. Singer Adam Duritz (Counting Crows) is 40. Actress Tempestt Bledsoe is 31.