James Gandolfini and Jamie-Lynn Sigler at HBO's SAG Awards after party. (photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com)

Seyfried's Crime Spree

Playing the skeptical Mormon daughter of Bill Henderson on 'Big Love' takes up a lot of Amanda Seyfried's year, but the 21 year old managed to squeeze in a crime-drama spree recently. In addition to playing a kidnapping victim in the just-released 'Alpha Dog' (her first on-screen sex scene), the former 'Mean Girl' recently starred in USA's 'Justice,' and can be seen in the upcoming independent film 'Solstice' — by the filmmakers behind the 'Blair Witch Project.'

Partially shot in an alligator-filled swamp in New Orleans, Seyfried went brunette for her 'Solstice' role so as not to resemble her character's best friend, who recently lost a twin to a mysterious suicide. "It was the first time I ever dyed it," she tells the Allentown Morning Call. "I went through hell to get it back to blond." Just in time to head back to Salt Lake. (photo: Lester Cohen/WireImage.com)

[Allentown Morning Call]

Ding Dong

Coldplay's Chris Martin likes to pop in unexpectedly. First he drops in on Ricky Gervais's 'Extras' this Sunday (playing a ridiculous rock star who drops in on Andy's ridiculous sitcom), then he's making an appearance on Kanye West's next album, 'Graduation.' And he recently showed up on a track from Jay-Z's comeback album, 'Kingdom Come.' The crooner gives Waldo a run for his money. (photo: Niki Nikolova/FilmMagic.com)

[Monsters and Critics]

Morgan's Run

Peter Morgan is having a good run. Three films and one play he penned are all getting attention at the moment. HBO Films' 'Longford' premiered at Sundance last week and will air starting February 17th; he was nominated for an Oscar® (and won a Golden Globe®) for 'The Queen'; Forrest Whitaker, who won best actor at the Globes® for his role in 'The Last King of Scotland' may be thanking him again at the Oscars; and his West End play 'Frost/Nixon' is Broadway bound. "It's a bit like four buses have arrived at once," Morgan told The Independent. "I'm just so heading for an almighty thrashing with the next thing I do." (photo: Clayton Chase/WireImage.com)

[Indiewire]

[The Independent]

Peter Jason, Kim Dickens and Garret Dillahunt at HBO's SAG Awards after party. (photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com)

Pure Purefoy

Brit James Purefoy insists on keeping things natural. The rugged actor refuses to resort to any plastic surgery to touch up his furrowed brow which he admits looks like "a field in Suffolk....You could plant barley in these lines. And I'm 42. This will get worse. Good. Look at Samuel Beckett's face. What a face, what a life....Old faces have so much more life to them. They're so much more interesting to watch." As for rumors that another part of his manly anatomy was digitally enhanced for nude scenes in 'Rome': "Mine's all mine....I can look at the episode and go, 'Yep, that's me.'" (photo: David Lodge/FilmMagic.com)

[Starpulse]

[PR Inside]

Air Male

Chiwetel Ejiofor on how to make a film and stage career work

Chiwetel Ejiofor ('Tsunami') has managed to juggle both a stage and screen career almost from the moment he was pulled out of his first year of drama school when he was cast in Spielberg's 'Amistad.' Currently, he's taking on Chekhov in the role of Trigorin, opposite Kristin Scott Thomas at the Royal Court production of 'The Seagull.' Having recently played Denzel Washington's brother in Ridley Scott's forthcoming 'American Gangster' Ejiofor insists getting to work with such high caliber co-stars is the luck of the draw. "I don't sit and think about who I want to work with," he told the Indepenent. "It's not predictable, so it would be futile. What can you do? Write them a postcard?"

As for juggling his international career he says it's not that tough. "It's not that complex to exist within the UK and within America....It's 10 hours away, so if you wanted to go to LA, you can go to LA and be back first thing Monday morning. Everybody can find me." (photo: Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage.com)

[The Independent]

Russell Simmons and Meredith Ostrom at the after party for the New York premiere of 'Factory Girl.' (photo: Stephen Lovekin/WireImage.com)

Trading Places

Piven goes from BFF to leading man

After playing "the abrasive best friend for the 116th time," Jeremy Piven (pictured here with Kevin Connolly) has finally taken the lead, heading up an impressive ensemble cast (including Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta and Ryan Reynolds) in Joe Carnahan's 'Smokin' Aces.' He plays a mobbed up Vegas performer with a bounty on his head, and the role called for some true showmanship: stage performances with credible magic tricks, joke telling, and playing drums with Wayne Newton and his band. He also gets to become a crime boss and a coke head before unraveling into a state of strung-out paranoia. It was the kind of role "you work for your whole life," he told McClatchy Newspapers. (photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com)

[popmatters.com]

Dog Day Afternoon

Set your Tivo. February 10th at noon, Cheryl Hines can be seen moonlighting on NOGGIN, the educational Nickelodeon channel, in the new series 'Jack's Big Music Show.' Hines guest stars as Sudsy Bubblestein, a dog stylist in the episode "Mel's Bath Day." When Mel (one of the show's star pooch puppets) gets dirty after digging up trombones he buried in the yard, Sudsy comes to the rescue, ready to roll up her sleeves and clean up his act. (photo: George Pimentel/WireImage.com)

[PR Newswire]

Sirius Foxx

Jamie Foxx (exec producer of HBO's forthcoming 'Life Support' with Queen Latifah) is spreading his love of music by starting two new business ventures. He's launching a company to nurture songwriters, and he will be exec producer and an on-air host of a new "urban lifestyle" channel called The Foxxhole for Sirius satellite radio.

"Music has always been a key part of my life and my work," Foxx told Eurweb.com. "But first, it is a true love of mine. I have always admired the songwriters and the musicians and now have the opportunity to collaborate as a publisher with songwriters, established and new, who share this love with me." (photo: Jason Kempin/FilmMagic.com)

[EURweb.com]

Kathrine Narducci, Edie Falco and Lorraine Bracco at HBO's SAG Awards after party. (photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com)

Capo di tae kwon Capi

He may be spending his days on the set bowing to Tony Soprano, but Michael Imperioli's only real-life don is a martial arts grandmaster named Tae Sun Kang. Crediting the tae kwon do trainer with changing his life, Imperioli (pictured here at HBO's SAG awards party with 'Sopranos' co-star Steve Schirripa) celebrated his promotion to 9th degree black belt (the highest rank in the martial art) with a bash last Saturday at the off-Broadway theater he runs with his wife. Remembering the "terrible physical shape" he was in before he took up with Kang (he smoked a pack a day), Imperioli talked about how tae kwon do has "transformed our family in body, mind and spirit. It has changed us as human beings."

After giving up cigarettes, he convinced his wife and kids to join him at Kang's school in lower Manhattan. The training even gave him "more focus, concentration, and confidence" when it comes to acting, he told Access Hollywood. "Tae kwon do teaches you that you can overcome any obstacle, that you can tackle anything." (photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com)

[Access Hollywood]

Marlo Stanfield Takes On Bill Gates

As the cast and crew of 'The Wire' get ready to shoot their next season, Jamie Hector talked to AllHipHop.com about his character, Marlo, and upcoming acting roles. Asked what career path Marlo might have taken if he'd gone to college, Hector said, "...he'd probably bully the game like Donald Trump, Don King, or even Bill Gates. ... for you to work you have to come through Bill Gates for almost everything. Given that opportunity I think Marlo would have definitely took it the distance like that."

Hector plans to take his own career the distance, looking for challenging roles: "Something meaty, but if it's one-dimensional I'm not gonna rock with it. I'm always attracted to the life of a cat that starts from nothing and makes something great or becomes something. You see the development of the dude's life, whether he's a gangster and then he turns into a Bill Gates, or he deals with redemption or just a everyday guy going through his hardships in life and overcomes, I'm down for it. If the script is tough you could see me doing it, I could be down to a crackhead [or a] dope fiend, as long as it gives me the ability to stretch." (photo: Carley Margolis/FilmMagic.com)

[AllHipHop.com]

Chris Klein and Ginnifer Goodwin at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. (photo: Chris Polk/FilmMagic.com)

Adrian's Mustachioed Muse

There comes a time for every rising star to take to the couch. Lucky for Adrian Grenier, his band, The Honey Brothers, has its own in-house psychologist (Dr. D.S. Posner). In a new music video for their song, 'Some of Them Are Nice Days,' the shrink/guitarist puts his fellow musicians under analysis and delivers a few diagnoses — "twitchia nervosa" for drummer boy/vocalist/cowbeller Grenier. But at least the 'Entourage' star gets to meet his superego, a toothy-grinned, mustachioed twin. (Let's just say he's a long way from alter ego Vincent Chase.) New Yorkers can catch the band at the Brooklyn Lyceum on February 10th. (photo: Brian Ach/WireImage.com)

[Myspace]

[Brooklyn Lyceum]

Vorenus Unhinged

Kevin McKidd likes a challenge, so he was eager to embark on this season's dark journey with his 'Rome' character Vorenus. "That was what I really responded to about the role, the challenge of being able to deconstruct this man, this incredibly honorable and upright Roman citizen who has had everything taken away from him, almost in the same way as Job," McKidd told the Buffalo News.

As for whether there's a light at the end of the underworld tunnel Vorenus in descending: "I don't want to give anything away, but ....when you're at your lowest ebb, your closest friend, even if you don't want their help, will give it to you. That's what Pullo is trying to do — he sees that Vorenus is unhinged." (photo: Avik Gilboa/WireImage.com)

[Buffalo News - registration required]

Pierce's Heart

It may have been a chilly week for the stars and film makers who flocked to Park City this week, but Sundance audiences have a heart-warmer for their closing night film on January 28th. Wendell Pierce (Detective "Bunk" Moreland on 'The Wire') plays opposite Queen Latifah in 'Life Support,' Nelson George's film inspired by his HIV-positive, AIDS activist sister. It's the story of how a woman pulls herself up from a world of drug use to become someone who helps others.

"'Life Support' is also about how hard it is to forgive in the world, " explains George. "It's easy to decide a person is evil. Forgiving and getting loved and respected is hard sometimes." Pierce plays the man who needs to be forgiven — the husband who is responsible for infecting his wife with the virus. As Black Star News writes: "Ladies, get your Bailey's and ice cream ready for girls night, huddle up and watch this film together because you're going to have a lot to say about this movie — especially, the husband from many different perspectives." (photo: Mychal Watts/WireImage.com)

[Black Star News]