• In Justice's Jason O'Mara is in final talks to play Philip Marlowe in ABC's drama pilot.• Something About Amelia reunion alert! Ted Danson has been cast as a corporate titan facing off against Glenn Close's litigator in FX's get-a-title-already legal thriller pilot, says the Hollywood Reporter.• Oscar nominee Alan Arkin will play a prison pal of Damian Lewis' wrongfully imprisoned cop-back-on-the-force in the NBC pilot Life.• Legendary composer Andrew Lloyd Webber is a guest judge on NBC's Grease: You're the One that I Want on Feb. 11.• Lucy Liu and Jerry O'Connell appear on the Feb. 15 episode of Ugly Betty, playing a once-frumpy college classmate of Daniel's and a man Alexis meets in a bar, respectively.• Lisa Donovan (aka YouTube's "Lisa Nova") joins the cast of Mad TV on Feb. 17.• Desperate Housewives' Mark Moses guests on Without a Trace on Feb. 25.
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Kellie Martin welcomed her and hubby Keith Christian's first child, a daughter named Margaret Heather, on Saturday, reports People.... Foulmouthed and foxy funnylady Sarah Silverman will emcee the 2007 Spirit Awards, to be held Feb. 24, 2007, the day prior to the Oscars.... For a fourth consecutive year, Caroline Kennedy will host the Kennedy Center Honors, airing Dec. 26 on CBS, and this year tributing Andrew Lloyd Webber, conductor Zubin Mehta, Dolly Parton, Smokey Robinson and Steven Spielberg.... Fans of ABC's The Nine, don't miss my Trivial Mattr's blog entry teasing tonight's episode!
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Earlier this year Minnie Driver showed off her singing talent in her debut album, Everything I've Got in My Pocket. So you'd think she'd be thrilled to do vocals for her role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera (opening today). Turns out, that's not the case. Although Driver delighted in playing over-the-top diva Carlotta, she left the operatic crooning to the pros.
"You have to be very realistic about approaching stuff that you don't do normally," the actress insists. "I drive a car, but I am not [Formula 1 racer] Michael Schumacher. Opera is a lifetime of training. That particular bel canto sound is not something that you just pick up and do with a couple of months' training.
"I could sing Chicago or Guys and Dolls, but this is opera," she adds. "So there was never a moment where I wished I was doing it."
That said, Driver still sings in the film — sort of. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber
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