allie.cahill

Morgan Freeman: Ashley Addict?

When Ashley Judd speaks, Morgan Freeman listens. Freeman agreed to play a disgraced military attorney in the new thriller High Crimes (opening today) simply because, well, his favorite leading lady asked him if he would. Explains the 64-year-old three-time Oscar nominee: "She called me and said, 'Do you want to do this?' And I said, 'Are you in it?' And she said, 'Yeah.' So, I said, 'Yeah!'" High Crimes marks Freeman's second collaboration with Judd; he first starred opposite the Southern belle in 1997's Kiss the Girls. And if the Shawshank Redemption thesp has his way, a third will be right around the corner. "I just feel it's going t

Fri, Apr 5, 2002

Forest Whitaker: Don't Panic!

Forest Whitaker knew Panic Room would be a great movie, but only as long as David Fincher (Fight Club) directed the suspenser. "In his hands, I thought it would be really amazing," he tells TV Guide Online. "In somebody else's hands, it would feel more like a play because it all happens in a house." The 40-year-old actor/director says he jumped at the chance to play Burnham, a conflicted security pro who breaks into Jodie Foster's home for cash. The duo then engage in a psychological face-off when she seals herself inside the very room where the stash is hidden! Whitaker explains that Fincher's involvement elevated

Wed, Mar 27, 2002

Bassett Plays Black History Icon

Angela Bassett never dreamed she would play Rosa Parks  the civil rights activist who inspired the legendary 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott  when she sat next to her at 1994's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. As the actress tells TV Guide Online: "I guess I was just so in awe of meeting her that I didn't have the vision to see down the road that far!" To prepare for her role in The Rosa Parks Story  airing on Feb. 24 at 9 pm/ET on CBS  Bassett studied film footage and Parks's memoir, Quiet Strength. But she says the very private 89-year-old icon keeps parts of her life a mystery. "Some things you aren't able to find out about her," she explains, "and it wasn't really important. For example, she loved children so much, but never had [any] of her own. And she never shares in her autobiography why that is. "I never asked," she adds. "[Pa

Tue, Feb 19, 2002

American Pie Star: Slightly Off

American Pie's John Cho doesn't mind the raunchiness of his WB buddy comedy, Off Centre  airing Sunday at 9 pm/ET  but admits that episodes about flatulence and STDs don't appeal to his parents. "Sometimes," he tells TV Guide Online, "I say, 'Mom, Dad, you might want to miss that one.'" The L.A.-based actor and musician thanks exec producers  and Pie directors  Paul and Chris Weitz for casting him as lovable loser Chau opposite the gross-out comedy's Eddie Kaye Thomas and Sean Maguire. "I don't think I've ever met a person with that abundan

Fri, Feb 8, 2002

Jamie Kennedy's Risky Experiment

Talk about self control: In his new WB Candid Camera-esque sketch comedy, The Jamie Kennedy Experiment (premiering Sunday at 8 pm/ET), Scream star Jamie Kennedy has to adopt a variety of outlandish personas  including a Malibu-bred hip-hop wannabe and an overzealous infomercial host  without ever cracking up. However, Kennedy confesses to TV Guide Online that he did break down while shooting a skit in which his character can't stop drooling as a result of jaw surgery. "I started laughing, but you can never tell I'm laughing because I have my mouth open," the 30-year-old stand-up comic-cum-practical joker recalls. "I just thought, 'If this is how it's going to be, I don't know how I'm going to do this!' But ever since that bit, I've never laughed. I've always really been in it." Although Kennedy has appeared in a n

Fri, Jan 11, 2002

Reba Star Washes Off the Soap

Playing Reba McEntire's estranged husband, Brock Hart, on the country singer's self-titled WB sitcom has put Christopher Rich in the hot seat. But he would be the last person to complain: He's doing a lot less squirming now than he was in the 1980s, during his five-year run as hustler Sandy Cory on the daytime drama Another World. "The soaps were just insanely popular," he tells TV Guide Online. "I went down to open a mall in Alexandria, Va., and [they] expected 500 people, but 5,000 people showed up. "I couldn't get on or off the stage," he continues. "It was just like Elvis Presley  every time I moved my sunglasses, a sigh would ripple through the audience. It was a sight I was not prepared to deal with. It was kind of fun &#151

Tue, Nov 27, 2001

Freddy Krueger Returns!

Robert Englund has played more than 60 roles in film and on TV, but to horror fans, he'll always be Freddy Krueger. And while most actors gripe about being typecast in a part, the Nightmare on Elm Street villain confesses that he long ago made peace with his cult celebrity status. "I [decided to] just relax and enjoy it because I know you can't fight it," the 52-year-old classically trained actor-director tells TV Guide Online. "When the fans fall in love with the character, you really can't control it. "The worst thing you can do is pull a Shelley Long and walk away," adds the spooker, who portrayed the sharp-fingered fiend in seven Nightmare films, "because they're still going to remember you from Cheers and you m

Wed, Oct 31, 2001

Soap Star Sighting on Mulholland Drive

Up until now, Laura Elena Harring was best known for her short-lived role as policewoman Paula on NBC's defunct soap opera Sunset Beach. But this lady's luck is starting to change, thanks to director David Lynch. The onetime Miss U.S.A. 1985  who is of Mexican, German and Austrian descent  says her beauty queen cred and slight accent made it tough to land acting gigs until Lynch cast her in Mulholland Drive opposite Naomi Watts and Justin Theroux. "When I started in Hollywood," she admits, "I couldn't get any appointments... Nobody thought that I would be able to act because I wore this crown." While waiting for her big break, Harring was forced to "open up and

Tue, Oct 16, 2001

Josh Peck's Big Move

You may recall Josh Peck as one of Chevy Chase's precocious co-stars from last year's kid flick, Snow Day. He's got an inspirational message for junior high schoolers everywhere: "I think it's sort of a rite of passage for kids to get bullied, and it builds character." Though the 14-year-old admits other kids call him "Snow Boy" ever since the movie, he blows it off, cheerily noting that "everybody has something fun to offer and everyone's nice. If you get to know people, they can make you really happy." When his next film  Disney's Max Keeble's Big Move  premieres Oct. 5, he may have to endure a new nickname: "Robe Boy." Explains Peck: "I play Max's (Alex D. Li

Wed, Oct 3, 2001

Joan Allen: The Evil Within

Joan Allen  best known for playing heroines in The Contender, The Crucible and Face/Off  jumped at the chance to go bad in the TNT miniseries The Mists of Avalon (which concludes tonight at 8 pm/ET). "It really appealed to me when I found out they offered me the role [of Morgause]," the 44-year-old three-time Oscar nominee tells TV Guide Online. "My agent said, 'It's a villain,' and I said, 'Send me the script! Send me the script!'" In the two-part epic, which is based on Marion Zimmer Bradley's retelling of the Arthurian legend, Morgause lies and schemes her way to power. Co-star Anjelica Huston  Morgause's rival and sister, Viviane  was t

Mon, Jul 16, 2001

Julianna Margulies: Action Hero

Julianna Margulies has a newfound respect for Mel Gibson after sword-fighting Saxons in TNT's two-part miniseries, The Mists of Avalon (airing July 15 and 16, 8 pm/ET). The ER alumna tells TV Guide Online that she was in awe of Braveheart "after doing the little bit that I did. It's incredible, but it's hard, and [director Uli Edel] gave me the confidence in myself to know that I could do it." Thanks to Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn), the 35-year-old actress says that she discovered her inner warrior while playing a Pagan priestess in this feminist retelling of the King Arthur legend (based on Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel). "My first time into battle I unders

Thu, Jul 12, 2001

The Mists of Avalon: For Girls Only?

Don't call TNT's The Mists of Avalon a chick flick in front of Anjelica Huston. The 50-year-old Oscar winner  who plays high priestess Viviane in the epic miniseries (airing July 15 and July 16, 8 pm/ET)  insists that the two-part female-slanted retelling of the Arthurian legend has "a lot of men, a lot of swords and a lot of sword battles." Huston goes on to argue that "the men feature pretty strongly in this, so I wouldn't classify it as something that was entirely driven by women." Still, she does concede that the lavish, $20 million production  based on Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel  does put women "in the front seat rather than the back seat for once." Like co-stars Julianna Margulies and Joan Allen, Huston

Wed, Jul 11, 2001

Fisticuffs on Uma's Film

Did co-stars Nick Nolte and Jeremy Northam have a physical altercation while filming the Merchant Ivory adaptation of Henry James's The Golden Bowl? As director James Ivory tells TV Guide Online: "Somebody came up to me in Cannes or somewhere and said that they had heard that Nick Nolte had beaten up Jeremy, and I said that that was not true. The story was completely twisted around  Nick hadn't even come to [the set] yet." Bowl stars Uma Thurman and Kate Beckinsale as two friends in love with an Italian prince, played by Northam. And to Ivory's surprise, a setside scuffle did occur between Northam and Beckinsale's husband, Michael Sheen. The fight, he recalls, started over "something so silly. Everyone was raving at the end of it. I was trying to calm people down." According to Ivory, Beckinsale told Northam that he would have to walk faster in one scene to keep him from stepping on her gown's train. "Th

Tue, May 1, 2001

Uma Thurman: The Next Scarlett O'Hara?

Who did Uma Thurman think she was to say no to Ismail Merchant and James Ivory  the filmmaking team behind such cinematic classics as A Room with a View and Howard's End? Well, fellow thesp Natasha Richardson was curious about that herself after learning that her good buddy turned down the lead in the Merchant Ivory adaptation of Henry James's novel The Golden Bowl. As Thurman recalls, the duo were commiserating about the lack of compelling movie roles when Richardson reminded her, "'Wait a second, Uma, weren't you offered The Golden Bowl? Well, shut up!'" Thanks in part to Richardson's ribbing, Thurman signed on despite reservations about her character  an American expatriate who has an affair with her son-in-law (Jeremy Northam). "I just didn't quite understand [her] initially," the Oscar-nominated actress tells TV Guide Online. "And as I thought about it more... I suddenly realized that h

Mon, Apr 30, 2001

Love and War on Dundee Set

Survivor's Alicia and Kimmi and Colby and Keith weren't the first twosomes to do battle Down Under. Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles heroine Linda Kozlowski reveals that she and co-star-slash-husband Paul Hogan clashed when they initially met prior to filming 1986's Crocodile Dundee. Kozlowski  who has played journalist Sue Charlton in all three Dundee movies  tells TV Guide Online that she found Hogan "very chilly and unfriendly" at the film's read-through in Australia. "Afterwards, he left and I went to the producer and I said 'Can I talk to you for a minute? The leading man, Paul Hogan... he's not really friendly.'" Kozlowski would eventually see the error of her ways  "[Paul's] a little shy in real life"  but it was too late. "I think he was reprimanded," she recalls, adding that Hogan eventually reaped his revenge. "He said [to himself], 'I'll show you  I'll marry you!'"

Mon, Apr 23, 2001

Paul Hogan's No Crocodile Hunter

Paul Hogan  who returns to the big screen today with Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles  doesn't mind being mistaken for his Aussie alter ego, Mick Dundee. However, you may want to think twice before confusing him with another Outback adventurer, Crocodile Hunter's Steve Irwin. "That's another guy... that nut on television," Hogan insists with a laugh. "They roll around all day with crocodiles. Get a life, guys. Crocodile Dundee is about people; it's 10 seconds about crocodiles." But Hogan, who also co-stars with a skunk, chimpanzee and pig in the third installment of the Dundee series, confesses that it's frequently easier to act opposite animals and kids than adults. "There are quite a few actors in the business who are much more difficult than kids or monkeys," he reveals. "Animals and kids don't run off to the trailer and slam the door and refuse to come out because they're an Aquarius or something." Hogan a

Fri, Apr 20, 2001

In the Company of Gwyneth

Before Aaron Eckhart landed his breakout role as a scheming misogynist in 1997's In the Company of Men, he went four lean years without an acting gig. "If anybody tells me it's easy to be on a soap, I'll have to fight him," he says. "Because I couldn't get a soap, couldn't get a TV show, couldn't do anything." Luckily, Eckhart caught a break from Men director Neil LaBute, an old college buddy from his days at Brigham Young University. But when the then-struggling actor excitedly shared news of being cast in the indie, he took offense at his agent's condescending reaction. Laughs Eckhart: "He said, 'That would be a nice exercise. Why don't you go down there and do it.' So I fired my agent. And ever since then, my life has been insane." But in a good way, of course. A major coup for Eckhart was playing Julia Roberts's grease monkey beau in Erin Brockovich  a film whose box office chances he now admits having had his doubt

Thu, Mar 22, 2001

Job Star Deciphers Girl Code

Former Loveline co-host Diane Farr knows what women want. And in her first book, The Girl Code (Little Brown, $14.95), the actress demystifies dating and doles out advice to lovelorn ladies. But Farr, who co-stars on Roswell and Denis Leary's new ABC police dramedy The Job, is quick to point out that her book is nothing like The Rules. "I think it's really demeaning to insinuate that a woman has to trick a man into spending his life with her," Farr tells TV Guide Online. "We certainly don't have to trick anybody into our company." Instead, she says The Girl Code is meant as a "homage to friendship. It's revering girl-girl relationships which we don't spend that much time on." Sharing anecdotes with her girlfriends and managing bars before her acting career took off helped Farr compile a list of dating do's and don'ts over the years. Besides flat-out lying about yourself on a date, she says, "Another really bad trap t

Thu, Mar 15, 2001

Nothing Funny About Myers's Childhood

Austin Powers star Mike Myers reveals that his two older brothers treated him like "a virtual punching bag" for most of his young life. "I got peed on a lot and farted on. They'd make me drink Mountain Dew, but they'd actually wizzed in it," he tells host James Lipton during a special two-hour episode of Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio (airing Jan. 14 at 8 pm/ET). Myers then joked that he still is forced to down his brothers' toxic concoctions: "Just last Christmas, in fact." The Toronto native admits that although he "was never considered funny in [his] house," he started acting when he was eight years old. "I did about 18 TV commercials," he remembers. "Gilda Radner played my mother in one of them. I fell in love with her and I cried at the end of [the commercial shoot] and my brothers called me 'Sucky Baby.' Then I was basically pickled in their urine. It's a long story. "It's in my book," he adds in jest. "Why I Kill. It's

Fri, Jan 12, 2001

Dennis Franz: The Naked Truth

Dennis Franz says that he remains extremely grateful to his former NYPD Blue leading lady Sharon Lawrence for distracting viewers from his nude body in their now-infamous shower scene. "I never thought at my age, and the way I look, that I would be asked to do that kind of a thing," Franz reveals in a Lifetime Intimate Portrait on Sharon Lawrence (premiering Monday, 7 pm/ET). "Thankfully, Sharon agreed to step in the shower with me and save and redeem that scene somehow. I knew the camera wasn't just staring at my butt, and her butt could share the camera with mine." Lawrence's character, Assistant District Attorney Sylvia Costas, was killed off in NYPD Blue's 1999 season finale, and Franz admits that the ABC drama has just not been the same without her. "I think how great the storylines would be if she was around," he sighs. Lawrence, who has since starred in the short-lived CBS

Fri, Dec 1, 2000

Two Guys's Girl Reveals Carrey Crush

Two Guys and a Girl star Traylor Howard reveals that she briefly pictured herself dating Jim Carrey. But the actress  who appeared opposite the Grinch star in last summer's comedy disappointment Me, Myself &amp; Irene  says that someone else planted the romance bug in her ear. "Before I did the movie, my friend said he could see me and Jim going out," Howard tells the TV Guide Channel. "I'm like, 'Yeah, maybe.' [But] then there was [his Irene leading lady] Renee [Zellweger], so apparently that worked. Nothing for me." Howard still managed to get some action with the $20 million-a-movie man. In the film, the two share a kiss. And when the cameras weren't rolling, Howard  who admits she came into the film thinking Carrey would be "really out there"  says the actor was funny, professional, yet sligh

Mon, Nov 6, 2000

Braugher's Back!

Former Homicide: Life on the Street Emmy winner Andre Braugher was reluctant to return to primetime TV, in the ABC medical drama Gideon's Crossing, debuting Oct. 10 (10 pm/ET). So reluctant, executive producer Paul Attanasio didn't think he'd be interested. "There wasn't really any opportunity to get him for this," offers Attanasio, who was behind the 1997 hit mob movie Donnie Brasco, "because he had told everyone he would never do series television again." Luckily, Braugher read Attanasio's script and was blown away. "I just think there's nobody who's as fun to write for," admits the auteur, who wrote the pilot with Braugher in mind. "He's my favorite actor." In his latest TV role, Braugher plays a doctor overseeing residents (played by Eric Dane, Russell Hornsby, Ravi Kapoor, Sophie Keller, Hamish Linklater and Rhona Mitra) at a teaching hospital. The series, explains Attanasio, focuses on "how

Wed, Oct 4, 2000