michael.ausiello

Will Matthew and Sarah Make Music Together?

Sarah Jessica Parker will likely turn down an opportunity to star opposite husband Matthew Broderick in ABC's upcoming adaptation of the Broadway classic The Music Man. The Sex and the City heroine was approached to play Marian, the town librarian who captures the heart of con man Harold Hill (Broderick). "I don't think [she's going to do it]," Broderick tells TV Guide Online. "But we'll have to wait and see. She hasn't decided. She has to figure out whether that would be a good thing for her, a good role for her." The Ferris Bueller star reveals that the real-life couple actually are hoping to reunite for a TV remake of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, reprising the roles they played on Broadway. "We've been trying to get a chance to do that again on TV," says Broderick, who won a Tony for his portrayal of J. Pierrepont Finch in Business. "We'll do something together." Well, there's always a chance Brode

Wed, Nov 8, 2000

Angels Fashion Faux Pas

Charlie's Angels star/producer Drew Barrymore  who's no doubt still celebrating the film's record $40 million opening this past weekend  says that there are two fashion accessories no self-respecting Angel would ever be caught dead wearing: earrings and skirts. "I never wore earrings, because… if you live the life where at a moment's notice you could be in a fight, [they] could really hurt getting ripped out of your ears," says Barrymore, who, in addition to co-stars Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu, trained rigorously for the film's elaborate martial arts sequences. "And I never wore any skirts, because, who wants to fight in a skirt?" Diaz admits that the wardrobe restrictions were occasionally frustrating. "There were a couple of times where you really wanted to wear a skirt," she admits, adding that footwear also proved a tricky issue. "There were times where the outfit would have looked so badass with stilettos  you

Tue, Nov 7, 2000

Lopez Responds to Diva Charge

Pop star/actress Jennifer Lopez believes that a diva doesn't necessarily have to be a woman. Still, the Golden Globe-nominated Selena star says it's high time Webster's came up with a word for a male prima donna. "[Diva] is definitely something that's associated with women, and I guess they should have a man's term for it," says Lopez, whose own rumored antics have led some to slap her with the diva label. "But, we can just use diva for them too." For her part, Lopez  who next appears opposite Matthew McConaughey in the romantic comedy The Wedding Planner  explains that there are two very distinct types of divas. "A diva [can be] an icon whose had a long, prosperous career and has proven herself over and over," she says. "[Someone] who is a legend in her own time, like Tina Turner or Barbra Streisand. And then it's used in a negative way [to describe] somebody who's demanding and overbearing and obnoxious."

Mon, Nov 6, 2000

Censored Hype

Believe it or not, the WB's lewd and crude sketch comedy, Hype, does have its boundaries. The show  which has featured everything from a faux President Clinton humping Monica Lewinsky's image on a park bench to a skit of Tom Green pulling his engagement ring to Drew Barrymore out of his butt  has been forbidden from uttering a certain five-letter word. "I can't say 'penis,'" series star Shayma Tash tells TV Guide Online. "They won't let me. I did the 'Hype Report' and I wanted to say, 'Good evening. I'm Shayma Tash, and I have a penis... at home... in my sock drawer... waiting for me.' And they won't let me say 'penis' to the camera and I'm upset. Dr. Ruth can say 'penis.' "They let me say, 'Good evening. I'm Shayma Tash and I'm the best sex I've ever had,' and, 'Sometimes, I don't feel fresh,'" she continues. "S

Fri, Nov 3, 2000

Charlie's Elusive Angel

Lucy Liu had so much fun with Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz at her Charlie's Angels audition that she nearly, well, "missed" her audition. "They had the cameras rolling and we were supposed to be reading our scenes together," the Ally McBeal actress says, "and we just started talking and hanging out, and I completely forgot why I had gone into the room to begin with. I was laughing so hard I was sweating." The instant rapport came as a huge relief to Barrymore and Diaz, who had spent months searching for an actress to round out their crime-fighting trio. "Drew and I met with a bunch of girls who were wonderful," says Diaz. "After they would leave, we were like, 'She's such a nice girl. It would be so nice to work with her.' But it just didn't happen. We couldn't say, 'Yeah, that's the girl,' until Lucy came into the room." Barrymore, who

Fri, Nov 3, 2000

The Simpsons Endorses Al Gore

George W. Bush may want to make a last-minute campaign stop in Springfield, USA. This Sunday's season premiere of The Simpsons (8 pm, Fox) contains a blink-and-you-miss-it pro-Al Gore reference. During Bart's trademark chalkboard sequence in the show's opening, the proud underachiever writes: "I will not plant subliminal messagores." Simpsons executive producer Mike Scully makes no apologies for the blatant display of political partisanship. "To be honest, the staff does lean toward Al Gore," he tells TV Guide Online. "I don't want to speak for everyone who works for The Simpsons, but there are many people on the writing staff who can't believe that this election is as close as it is." What effect Bart's endorsement has on the undecided vote remains to be seen, but Scully admits that the timing of the plug was carefully thought out. "We

Thu, Nov 2, 2000

Chris Isaak's Wicked Game Plan

Chris Isaak's upcoming self-titled Showtime series may not be grabbing as many headlines as the network's other new offering, the gay-themed Queer As Folk, but the rock star/actor promises that it will be no less racy. "I haven't seen Queer As Folk, so it's hard to tell, but I do make love to a different man and woman in each episode," Isaak deadpans to TV Guide Online. "Actually, our show is very subdued and laid back. I play a comedian who lives in New York, and I have kind of a wacky guy who lives across the hall from me." All joking aside, The Chris Isaak Show  which is slated to debut in the spring and promises to offer viewers a behind-the-scenes peek into the rock music scene  does in fact share something in common with Seinfeld: Both shows are loosely based on the life of its lead. "I play myself, except on TV I'm nicer," Isaak says. "They make me a nice, caring guy. I don't say things that are politically incorrect or

Thu, Nov 2, 2000

Steve Allen Remembered

TV legend Steve Allen, best known as the creator and original host of NBC's The Tonight Show, died of an apparent heart attack at the Encino, Calif. home of his son Monday night. He was 78. "He established the format, and set the classy tone, for one of TV's great franchises," says TV Guide critic Matt Roush. "Without him, there might be no Tonight Show. And without his hilarious 'man on the street' shtick, where would Jay Leno, or even David Letterman, be?" Letterman has long cited Allen as one of his great comic inspirations. "Steve Allen was an enormous influence on television," he says. "His early work is really the foundation for what late-night shows have become." Johnny Carson, one of Allen's Tonight Show successors, took the news of the TV pioneer's death hard. "Steve Allen's death saddens me greatly," he says. "All of us who have hosted the Tonight Show format owe a debt of gratitude to [him]. He wa

Wed, Nov 1, 2000

Neuwirth's Broadway Blues

Bebe Neuwirth has not been away from the bright lights of Broadway for long, but already she's feeling major separation anxiety. The actress, who briefly reprised her Tony-winning role as Velma Kelly in Chicago last winter before joining the cast of the NBC newspaper drama, Deadline, admits that nothing compares to The Great White Way. "I think that there's always sort of a low-level feeling of missing being on the stage when I'm not on the stage," Neuwirth tells TV Guide Online. "I love my new job, Deadline, but I'm a theater rat, so that is really where I live." Neuwirth  who will appear in a special Broadway-themed edition of Hollywood Squares the week of Nov. 13-17  isn't knocking TV and film, however. "Everything else is really fun and I enjoy it and I give everything to it," the former Cheers star says, "but the place I'd rathe

Tue, Oct 31, 2000

Why Felicity Heroine was Axed

As hinted by TV Guide Online, Felicity babe Amy Jo Johnson made an abrupt exit from the show last week when her alter ego Julie dropped out of school. But for those fans already missing the painfully tortured character, executive producer J.J. Abrams has good news. "She'll be back later in the season, so it's not like she's gone forever" he tells TV Guide Online. "And if we're lucky enough to get picked up for the back nine [episodes], then she'll be back then." The decision to cut Johnson, a regular since the show's debut in 1998, was not an easy one, Abrams admits. "I felt like in a weird way we were wasting Amy Jo's time," he says. "She's an incredibly gifted actress, but she wasn't getting enough stuff to do. I wish we had enough money and time to focus on all of the characters. But the way the stories were going, I thought it was more fair to let Amy Jo [go]. "In the long run, it

Fri, Oct 27, 2000

Travolta Not 'N Sync with Grease 3

John Travolta is pleased to report that boy band 'N Sync will not be appearing in Grease 3  despite claims to the contrary by one of the group's members. "Most likely, it's Grease 3," 'N Sync's Lance Bass recently told reporters. "We're definitely going to do one. Everything just got put on hold because of the SAG strike, which is just very bad timing for us, but we're going ahead and getting the script written." But Travolta  who headlined the original 1978 film opposite Olivia Newton-John  tells TV Guide Online that the franchise will not be handed over to the bubble-gum poppers. "It won't be called Grease 3," he says. "I was told Paramount owns the Grease name and they're not doing that." So, who are we to believe? Travolta, according to a Paramount spokesperson. "We're not doing Grease 3," says a studio rep. Calls to 'N Sync's camp were not returned at press time. As it is, the

Thu, Oct 26, 2000

Kudrow: Phoebe & Joey Just Friends

Lisa Kudrow wants to clarify recent remarks in which she said a romance between Phoebe and Joey (Matt LeBlanc) on Friends was inevitable. "It's just a question of when it will happen," Kudrow told the Calgary Sun. "Maybe they'll save it until the very last episode. Maybe [the writers] will keep us all hanging on." Or, maybe not. "I don't think it's going to happen," Kudrow tells TV Guide Online. "I know that the writers feel, 'Jesus, God. We've had Ross (David Schwimmer) and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston), and now we have Monica (Courteney Cox-Arquette) and Chandler (Matthew Perry).... No. No!' We can't be that show where it's just these six people that hook up in different couples." Off-screen, Kudrow says the six Friends remain as tight as ever  a fact she believes has been integral to the show's continue

Wed, Oct 25, 2000

Squares Guy a Real Live Wire

Hollywood Squares host Tom Bergeron is feeling boxed in by the constraints of taped TV, and he's looking to do something about it. "I miss live TV, I really do," the former Good Morning America substitute anchor tells TV Guide Online. "I'd like to get back to it. There's an adrenaline rush to it that you just can't duplicate, even on a show that's taped as close to live as possible, like we do on Hollywood Squares." Bergeron  who pulled a Susan Lucci-type shocker by beating Millionaire man Regis Philbin for the Outstanding Game Show Host Emmy last May  admits that Squares' weekend taping schedule would make doing another show easy. "I think the key is to come up with a concept for a live show that would be exciting enough to syndicators to then pursue it," he points out. "But because of the way we shoot this show, it would definitely be possible [for me to do something else]." In fact, Bergeron would

Wed, Oct 25, 2000

Earth's Final Conflict?

Filmmaker Nora Ephron is denying reports that the release date of her latest film, Lucky Numbers, starring John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow, was pushed back from July 14 to this Friday to distance it from Travolta's summertime dud, Battlefield Earth. "That isn't really true," Ephron tells TV Guide Online. "The reason the movie was postponed was that it had just finished shooting. Before we did the movie, [Paramount] said, 'We want this movie in July.' And I said, 'Well, you're not going to get it.' They said, 'Well, we're just going to announce it.' I said, 'Don't announce it, because it's not going to be ready. I don't cut a movie in eight weeks.' "So, they announced it and eight weeks later I said it's not ready," she adds. "Then they pushed it [back] and everyone went, 'Oh, it's because of Battlefield Earth. But it was never going to be ready." As it is, Ephron explains that Numbers, a dark comedy loosely based on

Tue, Oct 24, 2000

Will & Grace Love Triangle!

Producers of Will & Grace are making good on their promise to take their central gay character, Will (Eric McCormack), out on a few dates this season. But as Max Mutchnick, the show's cocreator/executive producer, explains, the road to romance will be paved with land mines... all of them named Jack (Sean Hayes). "Very early on in the season, Will and Jack find that they're dating the same guy," Mutchnick tells Out magazine. "And right before Christmas, we do a story where Jack gets a new job at a store and meets a guy there that he's very taken by. But the guy seems a little too advanced for Jack. He uses big words like delicatessen and meticulous. Jack asks Will to come and help him speak to this guy through the headset system that Jack uses at the store. "He puts Will into a Cyrano story," continues Mutchnick, "where the guy falls in love

Tue, Oct 24, 2000

Dalton Possessed With Suspicion

Former James Bond Timothy Dalton is on the trail of a conspiracy. The actor believes there's something fishy about The Exorcist being re-released mere weeks before the premiere of his new Showtime flick, Possessed. Debuting Sunday at 8 pm on the cable network, Possessed tells the true story of the only Catholic Church-sanctioned exorcism on record  the same tale that was fictionalized in The Exorcist. "When I first heard that, I thought, "Oh Jesus, do they have to?" Dalton tells TV Guide Online. "I bet they found out [we] were doing the real story and thought, 'Hey, no one has seen The Exorcist in a long time, why don't we get it out and make some money.' And they were right, weren't they? They did make some money." Indeed, the classic spooker has raked in another $30 million in its first three weeks of re-release. Dalton, however, doesn't think The Exorcist's popularity will be the death of Possessed. "I

Fri, Oct 20, 2000

Spacey Almost Backed Out of Forward

Kevin Spacey's first reaction after reading the script for his latest film, Pay It Forward (opening Friday), was that in the wrong hands it could be a disaster. "I liked it immediately, but I was very nervous about it," the two-time Oscar winner admits of the movie in which 12-year-old Haley Joel Osment tries to save the world by committing random acts of kindness. "What worried me was the 'goo' factor  the overly sentimental potential of a film, which could be perceived as, 'Oh, they're trying to do a do-good movie and it has that kind of movie-of-the-week quality.' "I wanted it to be real and I wanted it to be moving," he continues, "but moving in a way that would be genuine and not push buttons for the sake of pushing buttons." To his relief, Spacey quickly discovered that the movie's director, Mimi Leder (Deep Impact), as well as co-star Helen Hunt, were equally as concerned about the potential for too much sap. "We al

Thu, Oct 19, 2000

Hines Exits Will & Grace

Tap dancing legend Gregory Hines will take an early-season break from his recurring role on NBC's Will & Grace to direct Red Sneakers, a movie for Showtime. The actor tells TV Guide Online that before he heads out, viewers can expect a surprising twist in his character's romance with Grace (Debra Messing). "Something interesting is going to happen between me and Grace," reveals Hines, who plays Will's ruthless boss, Ben Doucette, "and then I'm going to leave to direct this film, then I'll come back. But I can't tell you what's going to happen." An NBC spokesperson teases that the plot twist will be revealed in the Nov. 2 episode, Hines's final before taking off. With Karen's (Megan Mullally) housekeeper Rosario (Shelley Morrison) becoming a regular this season, there's speculation that Hines may be next to come onboard full-time. And although producers haven't approached him with such an offer, Hines admits, "If they asked me to

Wed, Oct 18, 2000

Sparks: Straight as Folk

Former Talk Soup funnyman Hal Sparks has a message to all you single gals out there: He's not a gay man; he just plays one on TV. As one of the stars of Showtime's upcoming man-on-man action series, Queer as Folk, the currently unattached actor admits he worried his role on the show might lead to some confusion in his personal life. "Yeah, that was a concern," Sparks tells TV Guide Online. "But it turns out that women feel the same way about two guys together as guys feel about two girls together... so lucky me!" Besides, he says, "I never had much problem approaching women I like, so I'm not worried." Sparks is, however, concerned that American audiences may not embrace the sexually explicit Queer (debuting Dec. 3) the same way British audiences did the original. "I worry whether people are going to miss the point because they're so hung up on the sex," he sighs. "What if they get so freaked out and so up in arms that they don't see that these c

Tue, Oct 17, 2000

Hunt's Risky Career Move

Helen Hunt's reign as one of America's most beloved actresses may be coming to an end. Audiences are gasping in horror at a scene in her latest film, Pay It Forward (opening Friday), which features the Oscar winner violently slapping across the face America's other sweetheart  Sixth Sense wonderkid Haley Joel Osment. "I was so much more flipped out than him," Hunt tells TV Guide Online. "I can't tell you. The idea of perpetrating that kind of rage against that kind of innocence was crushing to me." Due to the sensitivity of the scene  and its importance to the film  Hunt and Osment spent more time on it than any other. "We shot it once where I did a sort of stage slap, and it was a lose-lose [situation]," explains the former Mad About You star, who plays Osment's alcoholic mother in the pic. "First of all, even a slight stage slap is not fun when you're dealing with the sweetest child you've ever met. And, second o

Tue, Oct 17, 2000

Thiessen: The New Queen of Comedy?

Tiffani Thiessen knows that Saturday Night Live skits have had a rocky history when adapted to the big screen: For every Wayne's World, there are three Coneheads. But the former Beverly Hills 90210 vixen  who plays a sex-starved housewife in Ladies Man (opening today)  has a good feeling that the Tim Meadows comedy will escape the SNL curse. "I saw the Ladies Man trailer when I went to see Mission Impossible 2 over the summer, and the audience was hysterically laughing," Thiessen tells TV Guide Online. "I'm hoping that it will do really well. I can only keep my fingers crossed." If moviegoers have as much fun watching the movie as Thiessen did making it, then Ladies Man could be the sleeper hit of the fall. "Working with Tim Meadows and Will Ferrell was absolutely hysterical," she recalls. "It wasn't even working; it was just laughing." In Ladies Man, Thiessen plays Fe

Fri, Oct 13, 2000

Haley Wanted No Part of Potter

Haley Joel Osment never had any interest in tackling the role of Harry Potter on the big screen. In fact, the Oscar-nominated Sixth Sense star  who reportedly was the first choice of initial director Steven Spielberg to portray the teen wizard  believes that J.K. Rowling's popular book series will lose all of its magic once adapted to film. "I never wanted to do Harry Potter. I thought it should have stayed a book," Osment tells TV Guide Online of the upcoming movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, to now be directed by Home Alone's Chris Columbus and star 11-year-old British actor Daniel Radcliffe. "There are some books that should be made into movies and some books that shouldn't. "Harry Potter is 70 percent imagination," continues the 12-year-old, who has read all four of Rowling's Potter tales. "You purposely have to leave stuff out in the books, for you to fill in with your

Wed, Oct 11, 2000

michael.ausiello

Will Matthew and Sarah Make Music Together?

Angels Fashion Faux Pas

Lopez Responds to Diva Charge

Censored Hype

Charlie's Elusive Angel

The Simpsons Endorses Al Gore

Chris Isaak's Wicked Game Plan

Steve Allen Remembered

Neuwirth's Broadway Blues

Why Felicity Heroine was Axed

Travolta Not 'N Sync with Grease 3

Kudrow: Phoebe &amp; Joey Just Friends

Squares Guy a Real Live Wire

Earth's Final Conflict?

Will & Grace Love Triangle!

Dalton Possessed With Suspicion

Spacey Almost Backed Out of Forward

Hines Exits Will &amp; Grace

Sparks: Straight as Folk

Hunt's Risky Career Move

Thiessen: The New Queen of Comedy?

Haley Wanted No Part of Potter

Kudrow: Phoebe & Joey Just Friends

Hines Exits Will & Grace