Hard-driving Bundchen kicks into high gear with ‘Taxi’

Her astrological sign is Cancer, but you know Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen for the Leo in her life.

As in, actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

They now live on opposite coasts, with Bundchen, 24, in Manhattan and DiCaprio, 29, in Los Angeles. And no, they’re not engaged, as tabs have speculated.

“I’ve never, in my entire life, read any information about me in the tabloids that was even 5 percent true,” she says.

“I guess they have nothing else to say because I’m a homebody who’s always home and not at scandalous parties and not cheating on my boyfriend.”

And that’s all the bouncy Bundchen will say about him in an interview promoting her first movie, the action comedy “Taxi.”

She plays a foxy Brazilian bank robber who zooms around Manhattan in a red BMW with her fellow bank-heisting babes.

Hot on the chase are a cop (Jimmy Fallon) and his unwilling cabbie chauffeur (Queen Latifah).

Fallon says he was so smitten by the “bubbly and funny” Bundchen that it proved a challenge for him to “act in a scene with her instead of just staring at her.

“But you’ve got to keep thinking, ‘Leo, Leo, gotta give respect to my man and respect the love.’ “

He’s not the only one who can’t take his eyes off her. During a photo shoot on a Midtown street, Bundchen posed and rolled around on the hood of a souped-up yellow cab as an appreciative and exponentially growing group of guys stared. And stared. And stared some more.

“Hi!” the lively supermodel yelled in response, waving to her fans.

The irrepressible Bundchen relished her first movie just as much and even did some of her own speed-demon driving stunts.

But don’t call her an actress – yet.

“I’m a girl who takes pictures. Acting was just a fun thing,” says Bundchen, who has no other films lined up at the moment.

Initially, she says, she turned down the movie offer because “I’m a model, and people have this thing about models becoming actresses, which I think is so stupid because Cameron Diaz was a model, Charlize Theron was a model, Uma Thurman was a model.

“And then I thought, ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks, because I really needed a challenge in my life.’ “

That’s why Bundchen, who has been modeling for a decade, says she wants to quit in the next six years.

“I don’t want to be one of those girls who’s 30 and still doing modeling,” she says. “You just repeat yourself.”

And although Bundchen brushes off compliments about her toned, tan physique and perfectly tousled streaked hair, she does brag about being a road warrior.

“I don’t want to be full of myself, but I think I’m a pretty good driver,” she says with a laugh. She says she has been ticketed only once.

And putting the pedal to the metal has served her well in her quest to avoid the paparazzi who dog her and DiCaprio when Bundchen visits him in Los Angeles.

“In L.A., they can never find me. I get them on the freeway, and they’re history.”

The birthday bunch

Singer Daryl Hall (Hall and Oates) is 55. Actor David Morse (“St. Elsewhere”) is 51. Actress Joan Cusak is 42. Actor-writer Michael J. Nelson (“Mystery Science Theater 3000”) is 40. Actor Sean Patrick Flanery is 39. Actor Luke Perry is 38. Actor Jane Krakowski (“Ally McBeal”) is 36. Rapper MC Lyte is 33. Actress Michelle Trachtenberg (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Inspector Gadget”) is 19.