"I'd love to have a daughter." — Meg Ryan, who has a nine-year-old son with ex-hubby Dennis Quaid, on her desire to have more kids in an interview with Reader's Digest. — Michael Ausiello
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Fox really needs David Duchovny now: CBS will air the two-hour finale of its upcoming Survivor: Marquesas on Sunday, May 19 — likely pitting it against Fox's series finale for The X-Files. Why move the climax from the show's traditional Thursday night slot? One theory: CBS wants to maximize its May sweeps performance by cramming in as many Survivor hours as possible. (Network execs, however, deny that was the reason.) Meanwhile, CBS will launch the second edition of The Amazing Race on Monday, March 11 at 10 pm/ET. It will then move to its regular Wednesday 9 pm timeslot.
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While in Germany last week promoting Vanilla Sky, Church of Scientology follower Tom Cruise met with U.S. ambassador Dan Coats and lobbied to improve the Church's status in that country — where it is not officially recognized. Germany believes Scientology masquerades as a religion to make money, and some Scientologists are even barred from government jobs. Incidentally, Coats later attended a screening of stink bomb Vanilla Sky — which certainly couldn't have helped Cruise's cause.
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Legally Blonde starlet Reese Witherspoon will earn a career-best $8 million to star in an untitled drama set in the world of professional women's tennis, Variety reports. Witherspoon would play a onetime tennis phenom.
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Now that Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to reprise his role as Hollywood's favorite cyborg in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (for a reported $30 million), only one question remains: Will Linda Hamilton be back as Sarah Connor?
While out promoting his latest popcorn flick, Collateral Damage (due Feb. 8), Schwarzenegger gave TV Guide Online the scoop on the fate of T3's ass-kicking mom. (Her son John, the role originated by troubled thesp Edward Furlong in T2, reportedly will be recast.) "She is coming back... [but] as a past experience, not driving the current story forward," he says of Hamilton,
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If you saw this season's most outlandish episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, you might be wondering whatever happened to "It." "It" is the abstract sculpture Marie made for Ray and Debra that, unbeknownst to her, looked like the most private part of the female anatomy. Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal explains to TV Guide Online that the final resting place of the "ladylike" piece of art (as Ray described it) is the home of executive producer Jennifer Crittenden — who based the script on a very similar experience that she had with her own mother. "It's in their yard," Rosenthal says of the home Crittenden shares with her husband in Los Angeles. "You can just picture it amongst the flowers."
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Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals group is honoring Hollywood Die Hard Bruce Willis and Sex and the City's Sarah Jessica Parker. Each year, the Ivy Leaguers offer pudding pots, parades of drag queens and other modes of good-natured roasting to laud performers who've made "a lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment."
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Looks like fantasy flicks will reign supreme at the 2002 Orange British Academy Film Awards — England's version of the Oscars — where Moulin Rouge and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring have taken 13 nominations each. Meanwhile, Gosford Park and French sleeper Amelie each got nine noms, and Harry Potter scored eight. Winners will be announced Feb. 24.
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