Oh, if this isn't a match made in TV heaven, I don't know what is: Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has tapped fast-talking Parker Posey to star in her Fox pilot The Return of Jezebel James. Per the Hollywood Reporter, the indie darling will play an infertile book editor who asks her estranged kid sister to have her baby. "I can't believe it's happening," AS-P said of landing the picky actress. "The character runs the gamut of emotions from laughing to flipping out to breaking your heart in 22 minutes, and only one in a zillion people has enough skill and charm to pull that off. Parker Posey is that person." I couldn't agree more. In other pilot-casting news: • Scream king Matthew Lillard has joined NBC's Area 52, a comedy about G-men babysitting an alien.• Anthony Anderson will topline Fox's K-Ville drama about cops in post-Katrina New Orleans.• Katheryn Winnick (House's recent rape victim) has been added to Philadelphia General, a Fox drama revolving arou...
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Harry Shearer and Eugene Levy, For Your Consideration; Christopher Guest (inset)
If you ever happen to meet Christopher Guest, the multitalented auteur behind a string of wince-inducing, documentary-style satires, there is one thing you must not do: Call his films mockumentaries. Although the actor/author/director/composer helped pioneer the genre — first as a writer and performer (the 1984 cult classic This Is Spinal Tap), and later as a director, too, (beginning with 1996's Waiting for Guffman) — Guest detests the word. "Don't get caught saying mockumentary to Chris," warns Catherine O'Hara, who has starred in four of his films, including his newest
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Paul Rudd
Not anxious to brave the roads this long holiday weekend? IFC has the perfect compromise: Wanderlust (premiering May 29 at 9 pm/ET), an original documentary detailing Hollywood's many and great road movies, with insightful commentary from such heavyweights as Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider), Alexander Payne (
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American Idol finalist and real-life Orange County resident Lisa Tucker will guest-star as herself on Fox's The O.C. on April 27, just in time to attend Harbor School's senior prom.... Indie queen Parker Posey has landed a three-episode arc on ABC's Boston Legal, playing a Blackberry-toting lawyer nicknamed "The Squid" who's looking to make partner.
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Eugene Levy
Eugene Levy: action hero? Uh, not quite. Although the SCTV vet — best known for the American Pie movies as well as being one of Christopher Guest's go-to guys — does a little running and a bit of jumping in the new action-comedy The Man, he has since decided to leave such heroics to pros such as costar Samuel L. Jackson.
"I've never been a physical kind of comedian," Levy acknowledges. "All of the physical stuff [in The Man] I tried to make look fairly credible, and give it a bit of a comic spin — if you're running down the alley and getting shot in the ass, you don't want to make it too painful for the a
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Daytime superstar Eva La Rue (ex-Maria, All My Children) is joining the cast of CSI: Miami this fall as a series regular, per the new issue of TV Guide magazine. Click here for more details and be sure to read this Friday's Soaps News for an exclusive Eva interview!... AMC alumni Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos may have left Hayley and Mateo behind, but they're still working together. She just did his Lifetime show, Missing, and he'll return the favor by doing a few more episodes of her ABC sitcom, Hope & Faith, this fall, including the third-season premiere on Sept. 23.... Hunt Block (Craig) says farewell to As the World Turns on Aug. 11. Rest assured the mischievous Montgomery will get his comeuppance for those dark deeds.... Former soap-stud Judson Mills — who played Parker Posey's farm-boy-toy Hutch Hutchinson
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