Kristin Davis and Nicole Richie at the Chanel dinner to celebrate "Les Perles de Chanel" in Beverly Hills. (photo: John Sciulli/WireImage.com)

Reality Check

Lindsay Duncan on playing real-life people

Lindsay Duncan may be best known in the states as the steely Servilia, Brutus's mother in 'Rome,' but the Tony winner (for Noël Coward's 'Private Lives') is considered "one of the top actresses of her generation" abroad. The Scottish-born actress has entered the fray with a new role in the UK film 'Longford,' in which she plays the conflicted wife of the House of Lords leader who campaigned tirelessly for the release of convicted murderer Myra Hindley.

"It's a daunting thing for actors to approach the playing of real people," says Duncan, who knows the Longfords' daughter, Antonia. And when a private screening was held for the families of the victims killed by Hindley and her accomplice, Ian Brady, "it brought it home to me that for them, this goes on and on and on. It never stops." But for Duncan, the film raised a lot of questions worth asking, "about our desire for vengeance, about the value, and cost, of religious faith and about how we treat people in prison," she tells the Evening Standard. "But, no, I won't be surprised if some of those reactions are really quite strong." (photo: Avik Gilboa/WireImage.com)

[LA Daily News]

Men Behaving Badly

James Purefoy (Marc Anthony, 'Rome') and John Corbett (Aiden, 'Sex and the City') as best buds? They will be in the new Showtime comedy 'Manchild' being directed by Kevin Smith. The show is about four fortysomething guys in midlife crisis. Purefoy is playing the group's ad hoc leader, who, according to the Hollywood Reporter: "is attractive, polished, virile and wealthy, goes to the hottest new clubs and doesn't date anyone over 25." (Now that's the kind of midlife crisis we'd like to have.) Corbett, on the other hand, plays a former Deadhead who can't pull his work or social life together. (photo: Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com)

[TV Envy]

[Reuters]

Fine Wine and Women

This Saturday, Lorraine Bracco will serve as special celebrity guest for the second annual Women in Wine charity event hosted by the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa and Wine Spectator magazine. Bracco will be showcasing her new label Bracco Wines. According to Earth Times, some of America's most celebrated winemakers and chefs will join attendees in honoring female vintners from around the country. Giving new meaning to "brown bagging it," the wine tasting will be paired with the results of a "mystery bag cook-off" between the Food Network's Iron Chef stars Bobby Flay of Borgata and Nobu-alumnus Masaharu Morimoto. Proceeds will benefit charities Living Beyond Breast Cancer and the Atlantic County Women's Center in New Jersey. (photo: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage.com)

[Earthtime.org]

Callie Thorne and Olivia Wilde at the Christopher Reeve Foundation's evening to celebrate the strength and courage of Christopher & Dana Reeve. (photo: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage.com)

Double Threat

With acting offers piling up, post-'Six Feet Under,' Peter Krause is getting more involved in the producing side of things. As he tells the Los Angeles Daily News, "I've found that having the lead actor creatively involved can only help — if he's not an egomaniac."

In the upcoming film 'Civic Duty' he plays an accountant in the post 9-11 world who grows suspicious that his Islamic neighbor is a terrorist. Krause got involved with rewriting the script and re-editing the film, wanting to shape his character, "so that I wasn't too conservative or liberal, just one of the countless people who ended up caught up in the confusion and fear we all felt to some degree. The movie is difficult to watch at times as it deals with racial profiling." (photo: Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage.com)

[LA Daily News]

The Democrats' Entourage

Democrats owe their new power hold in part to a pair of brothers whose alter egos are well known to TV fans. 'The West Wing' 's Josh Lyman is modeled on former Clinton advisor and current Illinois congressman Rahm Emanuel, and 'Entourage' 's Ari Gold is modeled on Rahm's younger brother, power agent Ari Emanuel. Lyman's 'West Wing' character was created by Aaron Sorkin and played by Bradley Whitford, both of whom are Ari's clients, as are Mark Wahlberg and Adrian Grenier. (The real Ari is pictured here with Whitford.)

And just as the real Ari is considered a political fundraising force in Hollywood, raising money for democrats across the country, his brother Rahm is considered the leader of an 'Entourage'-like club house that chooses which candidates to funnel funds to, according to Newsweek.

As for the real Ari's power: "He can pick up the phone and get anyone-anyone-on the line," a friend told Newsweek, too scared to talk about him on the record. And that was before the election. (photo: Michael Caulfield/WireImage.com)

[MSNBC.com]

Losing His Schtick?

Richard Lewis's life is so good these days, he may be at risk of losing his "life from hell schtick" reports the Los Angeles Daily News. He's back shooting his favorite show 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' he made it into the Yale book of quotations, and even fulfilled his dream of being on 'The Simpsons.'

He tells the paper that his life is looking up because of his new wife, Joyce Lapinsky: "To be sober, to be monogamous and to be married to boot! That's something that wasn't in the cards for me 13 years ago...I couldn't even spell monogamous a couple of years ago. I thought it was a type of furniture. But my wife is so good to me. I'm finally learning to live late in life. I shed all that horrid, crummy skin, but I still keep it on stage with me." (photo: George Pimentel/WireImage.com)

[LA Daily News]

Lili Taylor and Kathy Bates serve it up at the Sundance Institute 25-year celebration. (photo: Mark Von Holden/WireImage.com)

Borat No. 1!

Borat Makes Millions

Borat isn't the most popular guy in Kazakhstan, but the rest of the world appears to be willing to go out of their way to catch Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.' The satire's North American opening weekend took in $26.4m, replacing Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' as the highest grossing movie ever released to under 1000 theaters.

Cohen's flick was No. 1 in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, topping charts in Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark and Finland. (photo:Eugene Gologursky/WireImage.com)

[Variety]

Working Mom

Rachel Griffiths melds work and life

When she was playing Brenda on 'Six Feet Under,' Rachel Griffiths went back to work when her daughter Banjo was 6 weeks old. "That was a little traumatic, to be honest," she tells TV Guide. "As supportive as the 'Six Feet Under' environment was, I was really quite unprepared for knowing how it would work."

Currently, she's playing Sarah Wehdon, the oldest sister on 'Brothers & Sisters' ('Six Feet Under' meets 'Dynasty,' as she describes it). Her character is juggling work and motherhood and Griffiths welcomes dealing with those issues. "I didn't become an actor so that my life and work could be separate things," Griffith explains. "I feel great about being able to come in and say, 'I had this great idea. This thing happened with Banjo over the weekend. "

As for mourning the passing of 'Six Feet' she felt they ended at the right time, and grateful that creator Alan Ball was involved til the end: "Alan is the key voice of his generation - he speaks for this time the same way that Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams spoke for theirs." (photo: Steve Granitz/WireImage.com)

[TV Guide]

50k For Your Best Friendster

All that time on MySpace could finally pay off. Warner Bros. Pictures is offering a $50k scholarship to the best fan page for 'We Are Marshall,' the new film about how a small W. Virginia town survived the 1970 plane crash that killed their college football team and coaching staff.

The film, opening December 22 stars Matthew McConaughey and Matthew Fox, as well as Ian McShane ('Deadwood'). McShane plays a man who lost a son on the flight and fights efforts to rebuild the football program.

The two Matthews will judge the fan sites, along with director McG. The page with the most "spirit" wins. (photo: Mark Sullivan/WireImage.com)

[We Are Marshall]

[Killer Movies]

Kevin Dillon and the Las Vegas Pussycat Dolls at Pure Nightclub. (photo: Chris Weeks/WireImage.com)

You Gotta Have Hobbies

Sonja Sohn charmed by the city

In an interview with the Baltimore Sun, Sonja Sohn tells her local paper that eating is: "My No. 1 hobby. That and watching football." Having moved to Charm City in 2003, The Wire star and her husband, musician Adam Plack, have come to enjoy the area's local culinary treats. "We just love the restaurants. For a town this size, there's a number of great places to eat. It's phenomenal." Sohn adds, "Oh, and my new hobby: I started fishing this summer. ... We just bought a house in the Outer Banks, so I've gotten into fishing down there. And crabbing. ... I'm not cleaning the fish yet. Right now, I'm just reeling them in. I've been catching a lot of croakers, so I use them as bait for crabs."

And football? "I grew up with my father and brother watching football on Sunday. My husband's from Australia. ... He got into football because a partner of his introduced him to it. So, I was able to explain it to him, and then I got back into it." (photo: John Heller/WireImage.com)

[Baltimore Sun]

Garden Party

Bob Hope, George Burns...and now Dane Cook. These are the comedians who've headlined shows at Madison Square Garden. "It's almost like being in The Matrix," Cook tells the AP. "It's a bit surreal." Especially when he considers how many times he walked by the place when he first moved to New York as a struggling stand-up many years ago. "I'd think how I'd like to have my name blinking on that sign." And now it is. Dane will take center stage, headlining two shows, on Sunday the 12th. (photo: Jamie McCarthy/WireImage.com)

[AP via Houston Chronicle]

Special Agent

Karen Young shows her range

As FBI Agent Robyn, the agent who flips Adrianna on 'The Sopranos,' she's wound pretty tight. But in the film 'Heading South' Karen Young plays Brenda, an American woman-of-a-certain-age who enjoys more than the typical tourist attractions on a trip to Haiti — she and her friends enjoy the attentions of the virile, younger, local men.

Young was studying English at Rutgers when an acting teacher her junior year changed the course of her life when he told her to stick with it — something he'd only told 5 students. "I thought if that's the case, maybe I should," Young told the Telegram & Gazette. Of the difference between her two recent roles, Young explains: "[Agent Robyn] was working. It's a job....
This girl (Brenda) is really on the loose and not contained." (photo: Jesse Grant/WireImage.com)

[Telegram & Gazette]

Jamie-Lynn Sigler with Zoe Saldana, who hosted an event at Manhattan's G-spa on Wednesday. (photo: Johnny Nunez/WireImage.com)

A Gentleman and a Scholar

Sacha 'Nice' Baron Cohen

British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has managed to offend just about everyone in his guises as hip-hopster Ali G, the anti-Semitic Kazak reporter (and movie sensation) Borat and fashionista Bruno. But back in 2004, he told Jimmy Kimmel that fans of 'Da Ali G Show' had no idea who he was. "When the first DVD came out in England, I'd be at the stands, and the people would be buying them and have no idea that I was standing next (to them)."

So just what is Baron Cohen all about?

Well, says old friend Ricky Gervais, "He's not like what you'd expect. He's very scholarly and quiet, and serious." Molly Shannon adds that her 'Talladega Nights' co-star is "such an original talent. I was so star-struck. But he seems very normal. He's funny but kind of quiet. And he's pretty religious."

'40 Year 0ld Virgin' star Paul Rudd labels him "the greatest comedic performer on earth. There's really funny people, there's incredibly funny people, and there's him. He's got more guts and is more inventive than anyone except Peter Sellers. I think he might actually be better, because he's a very nice guy, too."

And comedian Tina Fey sums up this generation's great chameleon as simply, "Just a lovely, genteel, educated British gentleman." (photo: Richard Lewis/WireImage.com)

[The London Free Press]

Rocking the Vote

When grandmother and writer Bev Harris was curious about why the U.S. was switching to electronic voting, she started looking into the security of touch-screen voting systems. The answers she found disturbed her and are now the subject of a new HBO documentary 'Hacking Democracy,' which tracks her investigation.

TV Guide spoke to the muckraking grandmother (pictured here with doc's supervising producer John Hoffman) about what she found, and what voting reforms she'd like to see, as the founder of the watchdog group BlackBoxVoting.org. One thing she's interested in is going back to hand counting. "Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has introduced a bill into the U.S. Congress to have the entire presidential race counted by hand in 2008," Harris tells TV Guide. "Canada counts their federal elections by hand, and they have the results generally in about four hours, and with little controversy."

Ultimately, she wants a system that voters can trust. "The missing ingredient has been the citizens. Any system that we end up with has to be one that citizens can oversee. Anything that says, 'You don't get to look at how it works' or 'You have to trust the vendor,' doesn't really cut it. In a communist country, you have to trust the government. In a democracy, you get to check. (photo: Jason Kempin/FilmMagic.com)

[TV Guide]

[HBO.com]

Keeping up with Hines & Piven

Cheryl Hines has lost it. She plays a deranged party planner in the just released DVD, 'Keeping Up With the Steins.' Of course, you'd lose it to if your client was the alter ego of Jeremy Piven, who plays — what else — a Hollywood agent driven to outdo his rival through his son's bar mitzvah (he's booked Dodger Stadium). As the Sydney Herald calls it, Hines "fizzes with just the right degree of madness," and Piven's "barely suppressed hysteria is so at odds with his clean-cut, phlegmatic looks that you feel anything might happen." (photo: Paul Redmond/WireImage.com)

[Sydney Herald]