Tom Arnold proved in movies like Happy Endings and True Lies that he is an actor who can do more than broad comedy and host stuff like Fox Sports Net's talk show Best Damn Sports Show Period.

But in Gardens of the Night, opening Friday in limited release, he has his most dramatic role to date: a child molester in a film that deals with kidnapping and the exploitation of children.

''It's easily the darkest thing I've ever been a part of,'' Arnold said recently. 'I was going through a divorce and couldn't feel any worse about myself and thought, `I might as well do this.' ''

But in accepting the role, Arnold also knew it would be a difficult road because he himself had been sexually molested as a child.

''It definitely determined how I played the role,'' he said. ''I was struggling, and I remembered the guy who molested me. I didn't even talk about it until I was in rehab when I was 30. I couldn't hang out with the kids between takes because I didn't want them to like me,'' he added. ``I sat in my crummy gray trailer with a toilet in the middle of it and just hated myself.''

So why even take on a role if the process was so painful?

''It's a role nobody wanted me to do, and it turns out it's the best role to do,'' he said. 'I thought, `If this is done right, then this could help somebody.' And I also like the hopefulness at the end. We can recover from this. We don't have to end up on the streets.''

Arnold has done far better than the streets. Beginning as a stand-up comic best-known for his marriage to Roseanne Barr, he has found steady work in films and on television for the past decade and a half.

The best reviews of his career came with another independent film, Happy Endings, three years ago in which he had a romantic leading role pairing him with Maggie Gyllenhaal.

''That's what you look for when you do independent films,'' Arnold said. ``I think when you are categorized and typecast and then all of a sudden you throw something out like True Lies, Animal Factory or Happy Endings, it's surprising.''

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