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Katarina Witt Sounds Off on Divas

Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist Katarina Witt, who's producing and starring in her second Divas on Ice special for NBC (Saturday 4 pm/ET), insists the world of figure skating is a much friendlier place than that depicted eight years ago in the notorious Tonya Harding&#150Nancy Kerrigan incident. "That was the only one [of its kind], and it still stuck in people's minds," she tells TV Guide Online. Like most pro skaters, the German-born Witt isn't particularly comfortable discussing the rivalry that eventually led to Kerrigan getting her knee smashed by a hired thug. "[That] was really one thing that happened eight years ago, and it's time to get over with it. Basically, it's a very friendly environment. We love the sport, and most of us try to represent it in the right way." Kerrigan will be among the skaters joining Witt on the Divas special, which also will feature performances by Ekatarina Gordeeva, Surya Bonaly, Nic

Fri, Jan 5, 2001

Cate Blanchett's Horror Story

While preparing for her role as a deep-South clairvoyant in The Gift, Cate Blanchett received some strange advice from a real-life fortune teller: Hire some protection and don't commit to any boozy movie roles. "It was nothing really bad," the Australian native tells TV Guide Online. "[She] said I'm going to need two bodyguards  but that hasn't come to fruition yet, touch wood. And she said not to do any films where I played an alcoholic." Blanchett, who had no previous experience with psychics, joined director Sam Raimi in visiting several L.A. fortune tellers prior to the film's shoot. "I didn't talk about being an actor at all, and after 15 minutes they were basically sounding like the trades," jokes the Elizabeth star. "I think they assume whoever comes in for a reading must be an actor wanting to know if they're going to make money." Also helping Blanchett get into character for the psychological thriller (opening wide Jan. 19) was

Thu, Jan 4, 2001

Kinnear Helps Creek Cutie Bare All

Dawson's Creek babe Katie Holmes, who goes topless opposite Greg Kinnear in the new psychological thriller The Gift (opening wide Jan. 20), counted on the former Talk Soup funnyman to help ease her through her first-ever nude scene. "I hadn't been involved in anything like that  and she hadn't either  so I think we diffused it with some good humor on the set," Kinnear tells TV Guide Online. "I think something like that is always percolating at total discomfort. And yet, if you can have at least some sense of the silliness of it, [you] can diffuse it a little bit. "It was a closed set and it was handled with great dignity, I think, by the crew and by [director Sam Raimi]," adds Kinnear, whose character is engaged in a heated argument with Holmes during the pivotal sequence. "I think we set out to make the scene as impactful as we could, but not make Katie uncomfortable. She

Wed, Jan 3, 2001

Zeta-Jones "Born to Breed"

Being six months pregnant during the making of Traffic didn't pose any problems for star Catherine Zeta-Jones. When it comes to making babies, the newlywed wife of actor Michael Douglas  who also appears in the Steven Soderbergh-directed film  says she was "born to breed." "I had a very easy pregnancy," the actress tells TV Guide Online. "If I didn't feel so good, I would never have put myself and my baby at risk just for a movie  as much as I wanted to do this." Zeta-Jones, whose Traffic duties netted her a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actress, didn't experience one single bout of morning sickness during the entire shoot. In fact, she says, being pregnant actually helped her prepare for her role as a protective mother caught in the world of drug trafficking. "There is this profound instinct that kicks in when you're carrying a child," says Zeta-Jones, who gave birth to son Dylan four mon

Fri, Dec 29, 2000

Douglas Dredges Up Past

Michael Douglas says he couldn't help thinking about the troubled pasts of those close to him  including his half-brother, Eric, and his son, Cameron  while playing the father of a drug-addicted daughter in Traffic (opening wide on Jan. 5). "A lot of people came to mind, both family and friends," the actor tells TV Guide Online, noting that one particularly intense scene in which he confronts his daughter (played by Erika Christensen) about her drug use was eerily reminiscent of his own problems with Cameron. "In any role, you try to bring [in] your own personal experiences." Douglas is happy to report that 20-year-old Cameron  whose past drug exploits made him a familiar face in the supermarket tabloids  is "doing great. For me, the fact that my son doesn't have the ability to make mistakes out of the public eye is one of the most unfortunate aspects of celebrity-dom. You wouldn't wish that on any of your own child

Fri, Dec 22, 2000

Keanu's Sex Scenes Snipped

Some steamy sex scenes shot for the upcoming Keanu Reeves&#150Charlize Theron romance Sweet November (opening Feb. 16) have wound up on the cutting-room floor, and the pic's leading man is peeved with Warner Bros. for bowing to pressure from the MPAA. "We shot them, but the studio wants to make a PG-13 film, so it's all been cut down," Reeves tells TV Guide Online. "I trust Pat O'Connor, the director, and he says [the cuts don't] compromise what we did. But I think you lose something." One of the re-edited sequences involves Reeves playfully dipping below the water during a bubblebath with Theron. The studio suits were okay with showing both actors covered in bubbles, but they decided that the suggestive dive had to go. "That's a drag," he sighs, "because I think it shows a nice intimacy and humanity." Reeves  who's currently starring in the Sam Raimi-directed psychological thriller The Gift (opening wide on Jan. 20) &

Thu, Dec 21, 2000

Bullock's Big Knightmare

Sandra Bullock found herself in some compromising situations with co-stars Sir Michael Caine and Benjamin Bratt on the set of Miss Congeniality (opening Dec. 22). Bullock, who plays an FBI agent who goes undercover at a beauty pageant, panicked when she realized one scene called for Caine to put his hand down her shirt. "I was like, 'Oh my God, Michael Caine is going to be touching my boobs!'" recalls Bullock of the recently knighted Oscar winner, who plays a pageant consultant who teaches her the fine art of bra-padding. "It was like, 'How [can] you be calm about that?'" Caine, on the other hand, kept his cool while fondling the star of Speed and Hope Floats. "To him, it was like [being] a doctor," she says. "He was like, 'Okay... no sweat.' It didn't matter. Maybe he didn't find anything." Bullock also found herself getting intimate with Bratt, an off-screen pal who plays her FBI partner and love interest in the big bud

Wed, Dec 20, 2000

The Skinny on Benicio Del Toro

Benicio Del Toro, just named best supporting actor by the New York Film Critics Circle for Traffic (opening in L.A. and N.Y. on Dec. 17, elsewhere on Jan. 5), is prepared to give his all for a role. Unless, of course, it involves the sort of weight gain required for his part in the 1998 pic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. "I wouldn't do the weight [gain] again for anything," says Del Toro, who packed on 45 pounds for his role opposite Johnny Depp in the hallucinatory Fear and Loathing. "It took about three months to take it off. It's not healthy." Del Toro said the extra pounds, combined with the disappointing box office for Fear and Loathing, managed to set him into a deep funk. "What I did there was just really hard work and it just got thrown in the garbage can, in a way," he said. "It got really bad reviews  unfairly so, I think. That was a little bit of a depressing time, right there." Those days are far behind him no

Mon, Dec 18, 2000

Jurassic III: Hell on Earth for Star

Jurassic Park III, the eagerly anticipated third installment of Universal's popular dinosaur franchise (due in theaters next summer), has been rocked by numerous production hassles  and one of the film's stars is as mad as a caged Raptor. "There have been all the problems that one thinks of," says Oscar-nominated Fargo star William H. Macy, who plays the father of a 12-year-old boy stranded on a remote island populated by a new breed of beast: the spinosaurus. "The script has been evolving and being rewritten as we go, and what you want to say is, 'Who launched a $100 million ship without a rudder, and who's getting fired for this?' But that's the way it goes. That's the way they make these movies... big deal. I think someone should be shot, but I'm not in charge." Script revisions are just one frustration for Macy, whose latest film, the David Mamet-directed showbiz satire State and Main, opens in wide release Jan. 12. He also compl

Mon, Dec 18, 2000

Stewart Kisses and Tells

French Stewart says he didn't get too worked up sharing a passionate kiss with sexy co-star Karina Lombard in Murder at the Cannes Film Festival, the new E! original movie debuting Sunday at 9 pm. After all, what's an actor to do when his wife and scores of stage hands are standing on the sidelines? "I always thought it was sort of disingenuous when you would hear actors saying, 'Oh, well, it's very technical and there are a lot of things going on,'" the 3rd Rock From the Sun star tells TV Guide Online. "But it's actually kinda true. You're trying to make sure your head is in the right place and that she's getting some light, and meanwhile, there are 60 people there watching you. And my wife [fellow thesp Katherine LaNasa] was right there, policing all the activity." LaNasa wasn't spying on her hubby, however. The actress  who stars in the NBC midseason sitcom These Wom

Fri, Dec 15, 2000

Traffic Star Trashes Teen Pics

While Ashton Kutcher makes his leap to the big screen in Dude, Where's My Car? (opening Friday), his That '70s Show co-star, Topher Grace, says he wants no part of dopey teen pics. "I'm kind of hard on teen movies," Grace tells TV Guide Online. "I don't like a lot of them, because [they're] from older executives guessing what their kids want to see. If my dad decided the kind of movie I'd want to see, I can guarantee you I wouldn't like it." Grace  who makes his theatrical debut as a prep school drug addict in the new Michael Douglas film, Traffic (opening in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 27, followed by a wide release on Jan. 5)  says he actually turned down several teen comedy scripts prior to taking the role in the Steven Soderbergh-directed drama. "I remember saying to Steven that I wanted to do a one-eighty from what I am on TV," says Grace, who plays it

Thu, Dec 14, 2000

Sarah Jessica: Blush with Success

Sarah Jessica Parker is coming clean about several very intimate encounters she has had with viewers of her saucy HBO comedy, Sex and the City. So intimate, in fact, that she's embarrassed to admit some of the things fans of the series have revealed to her on the streets of Manhattan. "[The show's] about New York, [so] they feel it's their show and they feel entitled to tell you the things that they need to tell you," she says. "They show me stuff they've bought  personal things  and that's really weird." Parker, who's decidedly more modest than the best-selling sex author she plays on City, becomes red-faced when asked to elaborate on those "personal things" at a recent press junket for her new movie, State and Main (opening wide Jan. 12). It's one thing to talk about sex toys and other bedroom hijinks as a character on a TV show, but it's apparently quite another to do so in front of a room full of reporters. "It's no

Thu, Dec 14, 2000

Candice Bergen Waiting for Exhale

Candice Bergen says it's not easy conducting one-on-one interviews for Oxygen network's Exhale with Candice Bergen  especially given the relatively few cable systems that actually carry the fledgling women's channel. "It's really different not having any audience at all," says Bergen, best remembered for her long and successful run as TV's Murphy Brown. "I don't really get any feedback. We just stay the course and hope the audience will expand." Bergen  who plays a former beauty pageant contestant in Miss Congeniality (opening Dec. 22)  says she spends a lot of time these days conducting exhaustive research on her guests, an eclectic group that has included Diane Keaton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Madeleine Albright. "Madeleine was a little stressful for me," she admits of the first female secretary of state. "Foreign policy isn't my bailiwick, but we were so thrilled that she gave us an hour. That was an in

Tue, Dec 12, 2000

Roshumba's Wild Sexscapade

VH-1's Roshumba faced many wild temptations during the making of Ibiza: Music Paradise, an hour-long special airing Thursday on the music video network. But the Sports Illustrated swimsuit model tells TV Guide Online she did her best to escape the hedonistic paradise before she could get herself into any trouble. "I've been in the entertainment industry for over a decade, so I'm accustomed to decadence and people indulging their fantasies," says Roshumba, who spent 10 days covering the Mediterranean hotspot for the special. "But this was kind of really, really, really over the top." Roshumba recalls standing in a balcony at one after-hours club and looking on wide-eyed as a live sex show took center stage and six feet of foam covered the dance floor below. "People were dancing and sliding and jumping around," she says. "All of a sudden, they started dancing too close and we saw people actually boinking on the dance floor! "You know how we all have t

Mon, Dec 11, 2000

Marlon's Gas Crisis

Despite his energetic on-screen performance in Dungeons &#038 Dragons (opening today), funnyman Marlon Wayans tells TV Guide Online he was secretly battling killer jetlag and lots of, er, intestinal gas during the making of the sci-fi pic. "It was those damn cappuccinos," he says in defense of his flatulence on the set. "I was drinking them because I had to stay up. And, c'mon, you know how plane food is. All that flying messed up my insides." No excuse is good enough for on-screen partner Justin Whalin, who had to spend three days tied up with Wayans as part of the movie's adventure plot. Recalls the actor: "He'd look at me and go, 'I'm feeling nervous. Dragons make me scared.' There'd be this odor  and I was tied up with him! Let me tell you, man, it smelled bad!" Wayans, a hot property in Hollywood since Scary Movie became one of last summer's biggest hits, isn't kidding about the jetlag. The actor was already at work on t

Fri, Dec 8, 2000

Thora's Other-Worldly Experience

American Beauty star Thora Birch says she was ready for something different when she took on the role of Empress Savina in the fantasy film Dungeons &#038 Dragons (opening Friday). What she wasn't prepared for, she tells TV Guide Online, was dealing with the movie's rabid sci-fi following. "Sometimes, the fans will ask, 'Do you have a boyfriend?,'" says the 18-year-old actress, who's been working the sci-fi conventions to help promote the movie. "One time I got a gift, an Oogie Boogie man from the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, and on the tag the guy had put his phone number down!" When Birch first agreed to do D&#038D, she had just finished playing Kevin Spacey's moody daughter in American Beauty and was having a hard time shaking the role. "It was very easy for me to sort of stay in that depressed funk I had worked myself into," she says. "I wanted something that would kind of snap me out of it and tha

Thu, Dec 7, 2000

Adam West's Dark Side

For Adam West, superhero star of the hit '60s TV show Batman, it wasn't exactly a breeze getting into the role of asthmatic villain Breathtaker in the Sci-Fi Channel's new Black Scorpion series (debuting Jan. 5). After all, he's not an actor who's used to exploring his dark side. "It was good to play a supervillain for a change instead of a good guy," West tells TV Guide Online. "But it was a challenge for me to play someone that bizarre, with almost Shakespearean dimension." West appears as Dr. Noah Goddard, a onetime top cardiopulmonary surgeon who suffers brain damage from a gunshot wound and who now spends his days plotting ways to asphyxiate the city with a hallucinatory gas. He's one of several guest star villains in the campy new series, which also features former Batman Riddler Frank Gorshin in the role of the evil Clockwatcher. "Black Scorpion definitely is derivative," says West of the series, which stars former Miss K

Thu, Dec 7, 2000

Sci Fi Star Talks Tough

Whether on-screen or off, don't go messing with Michelle Lintel. The sexy star kicks butt as the superheroine of the new Sci Fi Channel series Black Scorpion (debuting Jan. 5), and spends her downtime practicing the Krav Maga self-defense techniques of the Israeli military. "Krav Maga is really great for a girl to know because... you can basically take on a guy 100 pounds over your own weight," the actress tells TV Guide Online. "It's a really serious, multiple weapon, five-people-coming-at-you kind of discipline. I really wanted to do it for myself, but it's worked well with the series." The former Miss Kansas is performing most of her own stunts in Black Scorpion, playing an ex-cop who dons a mask and fights a bizarre cast of Batman-like villains. The role is a dream come true for Lintel, who's never lost her childhood love for the cartoon superhero Wonder Woman. "I always admired Wonder Woman because she was so strong," says Lintel, a long

Wed, Dec 6, 2000

Thirteen Days Stars Hit the Books

Working on the new Kennedy-era White House drama Thirteen Days (which will open in wide release on Jan. 12) was kind of like studying for a history exam for stars Kevin Costner, Steven Culp, and Bruce Greenwood. "We had all done a ton of research," Greenwood, who plays President John F. Kennedy in the movie, tells TV Guide Online. "[All of the actors in the movie] had read a handful of accounts, and some of us had read 20 or more. Although it was a grim subject, we were so full [of] new information every day that it was kind of exciting." Greenwood's personal recollections of the subject matter  the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis  were vague at best. "My memories were of scampering down the stairs and huddling under a desk," says the actor, recalling the duck-and-cover safety drills at his childhood home in Bethesda, Md. "Once I started to do the research, I was astounded at the force of will it must have required to avoid pulling the

Wed, Dec 6, 2000

Pat Morita's Baywatch Hijinks

The cast of Baywatch Hawaii has had its hands full this season ever since Pat Morita came on board as a semi-regular. And the puckish Pat confesses to TV Guide Online that he actually gets a kick out of teasing the show's babes and hunks with his backstage antics. "I'm kind of a goofball on the set," says the veteran actor, best known as the wise teacher Miyagi in the Karate Kid movies and as Arnold on TV's Happy Days. Recently, he playfully tried to throw off one of his fellow Baywatch actors (he won't say who) by doing a scene with his shirt tail sticking out of his fly. "I just wanted to see how his periphery was," he says with a laugh. "He was a trooper. He didn't crack up until they said 'cut.' And then he wanted to slap me around a little bit." Morita's role as the grumpy father of Kekoa (Stacy Kamano) is quite a departure for the affable actor, who's still stopped on the street regularly by fans wanting to hear his famous

Mon, Dec 4, 2000

Faye Dunaway Calls the Shots

Seventeen years after the death of Tennessee Williams, devoted pal Faye Dunaway is finally getting the chance to make a movie based on his short story, The Yellow Bird. But the star of Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown is stepping behind the camera for the first time as director of the TV movie. "He and I always talked about me making a movie out of it," the Oscar-winning actress tells TV Guide Online, "so it's nice now that I'm able to actually do it." The comedy  which stars James Coburn, Brenda Blethyn and Cynthia Watros (Fox's Titus)  is slated to air early next year on the new Women's Entertainment cable network (currently Romance Classics). Musician Robert Palmer is overseeing the soundtrack, which will include an original song by Grammy-winner Diane Warren. "It's a kind of kick-ass story about a girl repressed and restraine

Fri, Dec 1, 2000

Baywatch Hunk Suffers Barney Overload

When he's not busy cavorting in the waves with his beautiful co-stars, Baywatch Hawaii heartthrob Michael Bergin spends much of his time watching Barney videos with his 13-month-old son, Jesse. In fact, while celebrating Thanksgiving at his parents' home in Connecticut, Bergin did nothing but stare at the perky purple dinosaur. "We're sitting there Sunday morning, there are a bunch of football games on, and we're watching Barney, over and over again," an incredulous Bergin tells TV Guide Online, adding that spending the holidays with his family in the east had, up until recently, become an annual tradition. "Every year, I would always go back [home] from Thanksgiving to the New Year and sit on my mother's couch for a month-and-a-half. But now I have a son in Los Angeles, so I can't do that anymore." Bergin is living just down the street from Jesse's mom, Joy Tilk, a hair stylist for Access Hollywood. They're "not together" but remain good

Thu, Nov 30, 2000