matt.webb.mitovich

Smith Takes His Hits as Ali

If Will Smith is looking a bit diesel these days (as evidenced by his bulked-up, 217-pound frame), it's because for the past six months he's been preparing for his role as titular boxing great Muhammad Ali in director Michael Mann's upcoming Ali biopic. Listening to Smith recount his intensive training regimen, the question arises: Did the wannabe contender suffer any injuries in the ring? "Oh, only injuries!" Smith tells TV Guide Online with a hearty laugh. "But it's all part of being a boxer. We've created a real training atmosphere." Adding realism to his prep work were visits by Ali himself; The Greatest's onetime trainer, Angelo Dundee; and Sugar Ray Leonard. "Sugar Ray came into the gym, and we sparred a little bit," Smith shares, adding that the onetime Olympic champion still has the right moves. "You can't hit him! He's never where you throw your fist. He's so fast." As the actor masters his jabs and hooks,

Thu, Nov 2, 2000

Theron Juggles Irons, Woods and Woody

In Robert Redford's The Legend Of Bagger Vance, which opens Friday, Charlize Theron plays the beautiful heiress to a golf resort situated in Depression-era Savannah. And although she wasn't afforded the opportunity to take any on-screen swings, Theron says that she, along with co-stars Matt Damon and Will Smith, found time to play the links of South Carolina's Colleton River Plantation, and the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island (where the film was shot). "We took full advantage of where we were," Theron reports, her enthusiasm for golf shining through. "The good thing is that we got to do that for three months, but the sad thing is that now, every golf course we play on, we're like, 'Well, this is no South Carolina, I'll tell you that.'" Recalling her first foray into golf, Theron notes that her mother's interest in the sport actually preceded her own. "But then, I picked up a club one day and hit a ball," she says, slipping into a mock

Wed, Nov 1, 2000

Damon Seeks The Write Stuff

In 1997, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck sneaked up on the film world with their screenwriting debut Good Will Hunting, which, after netting nine Academy Award nods, went on to elicit Oscar wins for themselves (for original screenplay) as well as supporting actor Robin Williams. So where stands the dynamic duo's follow-up? "We actually [recently] started kicking around some ideas," says Damon, who notes that he and his writing partner are all too aware of the scrutiny under which their next screenplay will fall. "We want it to evolve organically, because we are going to get crushed with the next thing we write, no matter what. So we just want to make sure that we think it's good." Screenplay evaluation is a major theme these days in the lives of Damon and Affleck, who, in conjunction with HBO and Miramax, are hosting an online screenplay competition called Project Greenlight. They also will serve as two of the three executive producers of an ac

Tue, Oct 31, 2000

Redford Envisions A Younger Legend

When Robert Redford's latest directorial effort, The Legend Of Bagger Vance, hits theaters on Nov. 3, it will feature Will Smith as the titular caddie and Matt Damon as a fallen golfing great who subscribes to his mystical guidance. Yet, at a very early point in the process, Redford envisioned himself and Morgan Freeman in the lead roles. "That was not a very long consideration," the Academy Award-winning director admits to TV Guide Online. "Once I got focused and started to develop the piece, I got off that [thinking] because it bore for me too much resemblance to The Natural (Barry Levinson's 1984 baseball drama which starred Redford). That terrain I had sort of touched on." Instead, Redford opted to enlist a different generation. "I got far more interested in going with a very young cast," he shares. "I thought it might be a more affecting story." Enter Smith and Damon, two of the hottest young commodities available

Fri, Oct 27, 2000

Smith High on MIB2

As an actor with nearly $2 billion in box-office receipts to his name  and that's just counting his Fourth of July releases from 1996 (Independence Day), 1997 (Men In Black) and 1999 (Wild Wild West)  it's only natural that Will Smith one day would return to the scene of one of his summertime smashes. What he wasn't expecting, however, was to be as blown away as he was whenperusing the script for Men In Black 2. "The whole gang is back!" Smith tells TV Guide Online, referring to his two extraterrestrial-fighting sidekicks, Tommy Lee Jones and Linda Fiorentino. "Oh, and how they bring Tommy's character back!... I can't let it out, but it's so brilliant." A rep for Jones confirms that the man who played Agent K to Smith's Agent J has signed on for the second MIB installment. "It's great when a sequel can have a better script," Smith continues, "because it is so rare that the second film is better than

Thu, Oct 12, 2000

Chaplin Longed For Ryder

Hailing from the United Kingdom, Ben Chaplin  Winona Ryder's co-star in Lost Souls (opening Friday)  does not list himself among those who always beheld that terribly typical dream of being a movie star. "I did want to be a professional football player, like all the English boys, but by the age of 13 it was quite apparent that wasn't going to happen," he confesses with a laugh, recalling his early affinity for the sport Americans know as soccer. With his goal of scoring goals dashed, Chaplin took a shine to drama, despite the pesky threats of peer pressure. "Where I went to school, acting wasn't something that boys really admitted wanting to do," he notes. "It was a bit... 'girlie.'" Nonetheless, young Chaplin gave it a shot and soon realized performing for crowds was in fact his destiny. "At the age of 16 I did a proper play, A Private Ear, by Peter Shaffer. It was the first time I felt... well, not to blow my own trumpet,

Wed, Oct 11, 2000

Winona Ryder: The Devil Made Her Do It

Although Lost Souls is coming out on Friday the 13th -- just weeks before Halloween -- and is about a race to prevent Satan himself from walking the earth, the film's star, Winona Ryder, balks at labeling it a horror movie. "I would call it more of a supernatural thriller because there's not a lot of gore," she argues, then adds, sweetly, "I'm not a big fan of gore." The actress, who co-starred with Sigourney Weaver in Alien: Resurrection, explains that her predilection instead leans toward onscreen terrors that are a bit more cerebral -- like her current offering. "I always find it more terrifying when you don't see the gore or you don't even see the bad guy... our imaginations can be very sick, can't they! "The first Alien movie is a great example," she illustrates. "Tom Skerritt is in this vent, and the alien is in there, but you never see it. They never cut away to the alien. Movies [like that] are a lot scarier." In Lost

Tue, Oct 10, 2000

Joan & Melissa: The Mouths That Bored

Melissa Rivers is expecting a child, a fact that Joan  her mother and fellow co-host  announced in her trademark squawk at the onset of E! Entertainment Television's Emmy Award Pre-Show. Alas, if you were expecting big stars as you tuned into the sartorial survey, it may have seemed like a nine-month wait as well. In fact, it wasn't until the middle of the program's lazy first hour that E!'s mother-daughter team dug their claws into a flesh-and-blood Emmy nominee, Everybody Loves Raymond's Peter Boyle. Prior to that big catch, viewers had to bide their time with Shelley Morrison (who plays Will & Grace fourth banana Rosario), Rudy Boesch from Survivor (whose wife all but acknowledged that his 15 minutes were winding down), and some guy named Curtis, a Big Brother contestant who won his admission on the house-based reality series. But then Emma Thompson showed up, followed

Mon, Sep 11, 2000