She’s typically seen standing next to Nicole Ritchie, but hotel heiress Paris Hilton is abandoning her well-coiffed entourage this winter, and will instead star opposite a character more after-school special, and less celebrity sidekick.

“I didn’t know what to expect going in quite frankly,” admitted Hilton’s “The Hottie and the Nottie” co-star Christine Lakin, when we caught up with her recently. “But I can’t say enough about how much [Hilton] went out of her way to embrace both myself and my co-star [Joel Moore]; she was so lovely.”

In the comedy, due out this February, Hilton refuses to marry her on-screen boyfriend (Moore) until he finds a suitable suitor for her fugly best friend, played by Lakin. “I truly look like a cavewoman in this film,” laughed Lakin, who underwent two hours of makeup and prosthetics each day before shooting. “I had moles, acne and a unibrow! I was balding!”

The sex-appeal-challenged costar said, however, that the movie’s screwball humor didn’t end once the cameras stopped rolling. “That damn mole would never stay on my face,” she remembered. “We’d be in the middle of something, and I’d say to her ‘Oh God, my mole is gone!’ and then it’d be on her clothes somewhere.”

The movie will mark the first leading role for reality-star Hilton, known more for movie cameos and naughty escapades than befriending “nottie” pals. Despite her costar’s notoriety, Lakin swears that off screen, hottie Hilton is anything but snotty. In fact, the twosome even spent girlie time bonding at the heiress’s house.

“Her house was very nice, beautifully decorated and modest,” Lakin revealed. “But her closet is to die for - absolutely gorgeous!”

MTV