JESSICA CAPSHAW has learned not to cut into lines. ''I did one time, and this woman kicked me,'' she said to a friend in a line for the ladies' room outside the grand ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria on Thursday, after the Museum of the Moving Image's tribute to TOM HANKS.

So Miss Capshaw -- the 22-year-old stepdaughter of STEVEN SPIELBERG (the daughter of his wife, KATE CAPSHAW, by a previous marriage), asked another woman, ''Do you mind if I stand in front of you while I talk to my friend?''

Permission granted. And so a three-way conversation began.

First she talked about her father's speech introducing Mr. Hanks and how she had thought about going to the ladies' room then.

''He went on for so long, but I just couldn't leave,'' she said. Nor could she leave when Mr. Spielberg showed clips from home movies (his) with Mr. Hanks clowning around.

''I mean, I've known Tom since I was 12,'' she said. ''I'm 22 now. That's'' -- long pause -- ''half my life. The home movies -- one scene was at my party.''

The line moved forward. She tripped on the hem of her black evening gown.

''And then Tom came on, and of course I couldn't leave then,'' she said. ''Have you ever had a dress so long you kept tripping on it? I mean, I've got really high heels on under this, so you don't know how short I really am.''

She did not appear short at all. About 5 foot 6.

''Actually I borrowed this dress from my mom,'' she said. ''And the pink shawl? It's not Pashmina, which is like what, $4,000? It's a $50 Tibetan shawl I got from a friend at Brown.''

The line moved again. ''So this woman from Woman's Wear Daily asked me what I was wearing. And I didn't want to disappoint her and say I borrowed the dress and I did my own hair in 15 minutes -- I mean, I'm from Missouri. Literally: I was born in Missouri. I know how to handle curlers. So I told the woman I didn't want to say the name of the designer, and the shawl being Pashmina? Why not?''

By now she was almost at the ladies' room. ''So I graduated from Brown last May and then I went to L.A.'' Here she left out the part about appearing in the 1997 film ''The Locusts'' with VINCE VAUGHN and PAUL RUDD.

''I had some work,'' she said, ''and then I got cast in this pilot, by the guys who wrote 'Something About Mary.' ''

Was this ''Rosewell High,'' the sitcom that Mr. Hanks's son COLIN was in?

''No,'' she said, ''they asked me to be in that one, but I went with this one, 'Odd Man Out,' for ABC.''

In the ladies' room, she added, ''We'll know if it gets picked up May 18.''

Washing hands, she introduced the friend from the line (remember?). ''This is the daughter of my headmaster in my school in L.A.,'' she said. ''You meet all kinds of people here. Wish me luck!''

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