Christopher Eccleston by Dean Hendler/NBC Photo
Christopher Eccleston Heroes Doctor Who has been tapped to be Hilary Swanks copilot in Amelia Fox Searchlights Amelia Earhart biopic According to Variety Eccleston who recently nabbed the role of the villain Destro in the upcoming GI Joe will play Earharts navigator Fred Noonan the havigator who flew with her on the plane that disappeared during the 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the globe Richard Gere Ewan McGregor and Virginia Madsen are also already on board for the flick Adam Bryant
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Alyssa Milano by John Sciulli/WireImage.com
Alyssa Milano has landed the lead in the Lifetime movie Wisegal, based on the true story of a widow who gets sucked into her boyfriend's life of crime. Oh, and lives to regret it. Sorry, I thought that part went without saying. Lifetime has also OK'd the production of a pilot for Long Island Confidential, a drama about a homicide detective who returns to her old stomping grounds only to find the ghosts of her past still alive and well. Sounds like a job for the soon-to-be-unemployed Julianna Margulies to me. (Her fall drama, Canterbury's Law, is that bad.) And on the big screen, Virginia Madsen is being joined in the spooky A Haunting in Connecticut by three new costars: Martin Donovan, late of Weeds, will play her husband; Veronica Mars alum Kyle Gallner, their son; and Elias Koteas, their friendly neighborhood exorcist.
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Here's why I'm rooting for 1 vs. 100 (Friday, 8 pm/ET), NBC's latest game-show import, to catch on, even modestly.
I happen to be among the minority that's completely immune to the dubious charms of NBC's ubiquitous Deal or No Deal — or, as I tend to call it, "that stupid briefcase show." Even if it weren't so proud of its mindlessness, bragging that it takes no skill to play, I find the entire excruciating exercise as empty as many of those briefcases.
Now the same producers have taken Deal's format of wagering against ever-escalating stakes, and wedded it to a trivia-based rip-off of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The concept is simple yet effective: A single contestant faces a "mob" of 100 peopl
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Question: Smallville spoilers, please?
Answer: Here's a spoiler wrapped in a riddle: Smallville has four couples now — Lana and Lex; Lois and Oliver/Green Arrow; Chloe and Jimmy; Martha and Lionel. Which one will be expecting by Thanksgiving? Place your bets now!
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Question: Did you hear about Grey's shooting on location in Seattle last week?
Answer: Did I hear? Did I hear? I was inundated with e-mails from Seattle-based AA readers about the "top-secret" location shoot. One of them wrote to tell me that her aunt works at the charter-plane company in Seattle that Patrick Dempsey used when he was done filming. "He was several hours early [for his flight]," she wrote. "So my aunt had the hard task of entertaining Dr. McDreamy for about an hour. Here’s the scoop: His nickname is 'Paddy'; he loves French fries and was impressed my aunt had already ordered some for his plane; the tree going through the kid in the premiere was a true story; this week’s episode is 'dark' — his words; they are currently filming Episode 8, and when asked what's going on, he replied, 'You know I can’t say anything,' but then smiled and said, 'But it’s good!'; he can’t believe how popular the show ha
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In other pilot news, ER vet Sherry Stringfield has joined the CBS drama Company Town, playing a whistle-blower at an investment firm.... Mary Stuart Masterson has come onboard CBS' Waterfront, on which Joe Pantoliano plays a charismatic mayor.... Kelly Overton has landed a lead in ABC's Twenty Questions.... Adrian Pasdar is another one of NBC's Heroes.... Simon Baker will join Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen and Jonny Lee Miller in CBS' Smith.
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Carly Schroeder plays daughter to Harrison Ford (inset) in Firewall.
Carly Schroeder got her first big break when she was spotted in a Shake 'N Bake commercial by Kin Shriner and subsequently went on to play the soap vet's angelic TV daughter, Serena, for six years on the General Hospital spin-off, Port Charles. Schroeder has also shared girl time with Hilary Duff in The Lizzie McGuire Movie and "lisp-synched" Cindy Brady in the TV-movie Growing Up Brady. Now, the 15-year-old lovely is playing Harrison Ford's spunky daughter in the hostage thriller Firewall (in theaters today). Here's what Schroeder had to tell TVGuide.com about leaving soaps to cross Hollywood's velvet ropes.
TVGuide.com: Firewall was your first big Tinseltown movie premiere, right?Carly Schroeder: Yes! Jessica Mc
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The current box-office champ, Hoodwinked, is already being groomed for a sequel, Variety reports. Hood vs. Evil, will find a teenage Red Riding Hood investigating the disappearance of Hansel and Gretel.... 24's Kim Raver has been cast as the ex-wife of Ben Stiller's bumbling security guard in the comedy Night at the Museum.... Virginia Madsen has replaced the newly pregnant Elisabeth Shue as Jim Carrey's wife in the psychological thriller The Number 23, which starts shooting Monday.... Daniel Day-Lewis will play a Texas oil prospector in Paul Thomas Anderson's sprawling period piece There Will Be Blood.
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Remember Port Charles cutie Carly Schroeder? The tot who played Serena Baldwin, the TV daughter of Kin Shriner's Scotty, has grown up into a 15-year-old lovely with hot prospects in Hollywood. Next month Schroeder costars in the Warner Bros. hostage thriller Firewall as the offspring of Harrison Ford and Virginia Madsen. Other notables in the cast include A Beautiful Mind's Paul Bettany and 24's Chloe herself, Mary Lynn Rajskub. Nice going, Carly!
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You've got to give Virginia Madsen credit for remaining true to her principles. Even before Sideways returned the '80s sex symbol to Hollywood's A-list, the Oscar nominee was picking and choosing — and abandoning — her roles as if she'd never been down for the count. Case in point: her recurring gig as housewife Helen Pryor's (Gail O'Grady) mod confidante, Rebecca Sandstrom, during the first season of NBC's '60s-set drama, American Dreams."Originally, I was supposed to be the catalyst for Helen to go to the university," she recalls. "[But the plot] started to look a little too controversial when I read a script where I was smokin' a joint. That was the end. They were like, 'Uh-uh!' I went from being a strong feminist to a divorced alcoholic. That's where my character was going... so we parted ways. It
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