Emmanuelle Chriqui and Zach Braff at the New York premiere for 'Paris Je T'aime.' (photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage.com)

Running on Empty

Peter Krause immerses himself in his roles so deeply that it can exhaust him. In his years playing Nate Fisher on 'Six Feet Under' he actually came to dream in character, he told the Contra Costa Times. "The most memorable was this one where I was on a ladder painting the house and I could hear Francis Conroy calling, 'Nate, 'Nate,'" Krause said. "I was painting the Fisher Family Funeral House the same color (pale green), over and over."

Starting today, he can be seen on the big screen in the new film 'Civic Duty,' as a tormented man in post-9-11 terror-alert America, obsessing over his Middle Eastern neighbor. But he's ready for something lighter for his next role. "It's not something I'm keen on exploring much more," says Krause, about playing intense characters. "I'm kind of empty." (photo: Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com)

[Contra Costa Times]

Close to the Vest

Will Powers Boothe reveal his hole card?

He's currently playing the VP on '24,' but Powers Boothe spoke to TV Guide recently about his time on 'Deadwood' — where his experience with The Bard came in handy. "['Deadwood'] was like doing Shakespeare in that if you had one word out of place, the dialogue just flat didn't work," he explained.

He also revealed some character secrets that show creator David Milch had shared about Cy Tolliver. "David explained it to me like this: [Cy] was raised in a whorehouse. So you can imagine watching your mother turn tricks and what it does to your thoughts on women. He's a con man, a gambler and a pimp. He's a businessman. And the one thing he can't do is have emotions. But he has feelings for Joanie Stubbs. And he tries to justify them and why she doesn't come back to him. It feeds on his psychosis about his youth and women in general. He has god issues, too. He faced his death and came through it. I think of all the characters — and David told me this — Cy is the only character whose hole card hasn't been revealed yet. I keep waiting for it to happen." (Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage.com)

[TV Guide]

A Shoe Thing

Can money buy you love after all? 'Sex and the City' author Candace Bushnell suggested to a crowd of 500 women recently that it might at least attract some attention: "make your own success, and then let the men come to you." The now-married author explores a different kind of female relationship from the single gals of 'Sex' in her novel 'Lipstick Jungle,' which is being turned into a series for NBC starring Brooke Shields as a working-mother of three.

And if the money that comes with success can't buy love, it can at least buy shoes. "People might complain about spending $750 on a pair of shoes," said Bushnell. "But my answer is, 'It's my $750.'" (Soul Brother/FilmMagic.com)

[Hartford Courant]

Rodrigo R'os, Carly Schroeder and Tony McManus at the Meet & Greet for HBO Films' 'Gracie' with the Atlanta Silverbacks. (photo: Frank Mullen/WireImage.com)

Seeing Blue

Anna Paquin (star of HBO's forthcoming Alan Ball series 'True Blood') made her feature film debut as producer at the Tribeca Film Festival this week with 'Blue State' — which she also stars in with Breckin Meyer. As Paquin describes it to MTV: "'Blue State' is...about a liberal from San Francisco who makes a drunken promise after campaigning for [John] Kerry that if Bush wins [the presidential election] he'll move to Canada. So, when in fact Bush does win, he follows through on his promise and...he meets this young girl who is pretty much in every way opposite to him. So he takes her with him on this trip, and it's basically their adventure together."

Meyer, who was unknown to Paquin before the film, had to earn his part the old-fashioned way: by auditioning. But his boss was sympathetic, having been on the other side of the table. "I get really intense anxiety from the entire audition process," said Paquin. "I've been in the position of reading opposite people they were trying to cast around me, and even if you have the part, there's still that part of you who thinks when they hear you say stuff out loud they'll fire you. I just find auditions really nerve-racking in general, even if they're not mine." (photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage.com)

[MTV.com]

Split Decision

As the May 5 bout between Floyd Mayweather and Oscar De La Hoya approaches, fans from east to west have started weighing in. "Mayweather may be the pound for pound best," says 'Entourage' star Jeremy Piven "But I'm not a gambling man because I bet with my heart, so I say De La Hoya." Fellow cast member Kevin Connolly agrees, but with different logic: "De La Hoya upsets everybody," Connolly says, "And I think De La Hoya knocks out Mayweather. I'm gonna say the 8th round."

On the Baltimore set of 'The Wire,' however, answers are harder to come by. "Two of the greats are going to be in there," says Robert Wisdom. "And it's gonna be a tussle for sure. By the 11th round, I'll pick whose side I'm on." (photo: Rob Delarenzo)

[East Side Boxing]

Revenge of the Nerds

Ian McShane is finally doing some work his grandkids can see. Granted, he's still playing the bad guy (Captain Hook in 'Shrek 3' and Tai Lung, the evil snow leopard in the upcoming animated film 'Kung Fu Panda'), but at least there will be no f-bombs. Plus, he gets to work at the DreamWorks animation campus in Glendale: "they call it 'nerd heaven' and they only do animation there, it's beautiful. They try to physically adapt the character a little to what you do when they're doing the drawings." McShane was particularly impressed with their inspiration for his role as the snow leopard. "I went in and the director said, 'We'd like to show you something' and they'd taken a scene from the first series of 'Deadwood' where I stamp on Trixie's neck and beat the crap out of her, and they animated it and transferred it to the leopard in the series." (photo: Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic.com)

[ComingSoon.net]

Bill Paxton at the premiere of 'Spiderman 3' with his father, John Paxton, who appears in the film. (photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage.com)

Kicking Down Doors

Oscar®-winner Helen Mirren staked out the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills to mark the 25th anniversary of 'Cagney & Lacey,' the '80s hit that propelled two law-enforcing ladies into the spotlight.

Besides crediting the duo for inspiring her own show 'Prime Suspect,' Mirren thanked Tyne Daly (Lacey) and Sharon Gless (Cagney) for breaking down an important barrier for all actresses: "With the success of 'Cagney & Lacey,' the networks and the studios understood that you could put a woman into the center. Before 'Cagney & Lacey' there was a great suspicion if that would ever fly with an audience, so they really blazed the path for the rest of us to follow." (photo: Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage.com)

[Metro]

Southern Exposure

Photographer Spencer Tunick, who has captured massive public nude scenes the world over, will turn his lens on Mexico City on May 6. So far, more than 3,700 volunteers have signed up to bare it all in the capital's historic Zocalo plaza, and Tunick expects a surge of eleventh-hour participants. "This could be my largest work ever," he said. "I'm very honored and pleased to announce that my art installation would be at one of the nicest and oldest places in the world, a place of great architecture." (photo: Larry Busacca/WireImage.com)

[QT Magazine]

Jeremy Sisto, Donna Karan and Keri Russell at the after party for the New York premiere of 'Waitress.' (photo: Gary Gershoff/WireImage.com)

Mystery Woman

Currently shooting the role of Abigail Adams in HBO's 'John Adams' miniseries, Laura Linney spoke to the NY Daily News about her new film 'Jindabyne.' In the film she plays Gabriel Byrne's wife, who has trouble coping with her husband's response to finding a dead body. "It's about what happens when you've known someone so long and you see them act in a way that's incomprehensible — a way you cannot accept or understand that completely changes the relationship," Linney says. "How do you get over that? A lot of people can't. It's deep and murky and mysterious."

Byrne (star of HBO's forthcoming 'In Treatment') sings Linney's praises: "When an actor has a sense of mystery, it pulls you in as an audience member," says Byrne. "You wait to see how much will be revealed this time. There aren't many complex actors working in contemporary American cinema, but she's one of them." (photo: James Devaney/WireImage.com)

[NY Daily News]

Digging Diggers

Lauren Ambrose plays an aloof Manhattan woman who captures the interest of Paul Rudd in the new film 'Diggers,' out in theaters now. The film, set in 1976, directed by Katherine Dieckmann and written by one of the film's stars Ken Marino, weaves the story of four male friends who work as clam diggers on Long Island and the women in their lives (be it sibling, spouse or lover). The film has been garnering positive reviews for its ensemble acting; the cast also includes Sarah Paulson ('Deadwood') as Marino's wife, Maura Tierney, Ron Eldard and Josh Hamilton. (photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com )

[New York Times]

'The Wire' Gets Busted

David Simon's urban drama fell in with some tough characters at the 61st Annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards for mystery writing, where it picked up an "Edgar" — a sculpture of the famous writer's head — for best teleplay. The prize for best screenplay went to Martin Scorsese's 'The Departed,' and Stephen King was honored as 2007's Grandmaster. (photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com)

[Variety]

Erika Christensen, Kevin Connolly, Leonardo DiCaprio and Lucas Haas at the premiere of 'Gardener Of Eden' at the Tribeca Film Festival. (Connolly directed, DiCaprio produced, and Haas and Christensen co-star.) (photo: Sylvain Gaboury/FilmMagic.com)

Standing Room Only

Why Kevin Connolly was standing at his own premiere

Last Thursday, Kevin Connolly was getting ready to watch his directorial debut 'Gardener of Eden' in front of an audience for the first time — for the film's premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. The Buzz caught up with the actor-director beforehand for a quick chat and Connolly admitted to a case of the jitters. He was planning to give up his seat to one of the 900 audience members. "I don't think I'm going to sit. I'll probably stand. Pace around back and forth. Certainly not for the beginning of the movie. I just can't be sitting there. I can't do it."

He calmed himself with thoughts of the friends who would be there to support him: "Adrian's coming tonight. And Carla Gugino and Constance Zimmer. So I have some 'Entourage' support. Jerry and those guys had to work, they couldn't make it. Plus my buddies from New York, so we'll see what happens."

Ultimately he hoped to steal a few moments to enjoy what he'd accomplished. "Independent film is like survival: you gotta make it through the day. It's really an adrenaline filled experience," he explained. "In fact, if I look at the script and think: I took what's on this paper and put it up there and I'm going to watch it in front of 900 people — it's a strange sort of adrenaline rush I can't really explain." As he headed off to do one of many pre-premiere interviews, he talked himself down: "The thing I'm trying to remind myself of...I really want to try and enjoy myself a little bit. But I'm having a hard time because I'm nervous! It's been a long time, I've been working on the film for a few years." (photo: Jim Spellman/WireImage.com)

Villainy 101

He may be the Sheriff on 'Deadwood,' but lately on the big screen Timothy Olyphant has been playing the bad guy (as an Internet terrorist in 'Live Free or Die Hard' and as Agent 47 in the forthcoming 'Hitman' movie). In a recent Time Magazine feature on movie villains, Olyphant revealed some of the secrets to his success with evil, namely, as Time puts it, that bad people don't know they're bad: "One person's terrorist is another person's hero," he explains "So you strive for that [understanding]. At the same time you throw your hands up and say, 'Look, I'm the villain in a 'Die Hard' movie. Don't overreach."

Or, there's always the keep-'em-guessing approach: "An acting teacher told me, 'play your villain like a priest and your priest like a villain,'" says Olyphant. "That's good advice." (photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic.com)

[Time Magazine]

Air of Celebrity

Edie Falco — along with Al Gore, Robert DeNiro, Adrian Grenier and others — kicked off the Tribeca Film Festival with a series of short flicks addressing climate change. As celebs stepped from hybrid SUVs onto an organic-fiber red carpet, the 'Sopranos' star described her own policy for keeping it green: "Like everybody else, I'm learning about things that I can do — the products that I buy — things that are more earth friendly," she said. "It's about not using so much of everything — we need very little of stuff to get what we need done. Little by little, I'm taking steps." (photo: Jim Spellman/WireImage.com)

[Metro.co.uk]