Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller at a screening of 'Interview' at the Tribeca Grand in New York City. (photo: Michael Loccisano/FilmMagic.com)

Ms. Fix-It

Have a door off its hinges? Lili Taylor would love to help. The daughter of a hardware-store owner realized recently that she's drawn to screwing around with home-repair projects: "I bring little tools with me and have things ready to go ... Mothers who are overwhelmed and their door keeps falling off its hinges, I just love getting in there and fixing it so it's one less stress thing for them. I spent some time in the hardware store but I didn't realize I love fixing things like this until five years ago. Now it's like people wait for me to come around and will say, 'Can you fix this for me?'" (photo: Stephen Lovekin/WireImage.com)

[McClatchy-Tribune News Service via OC Register]

Blowin' in the Wind

Milch's new mentee

David Milch has a reputation for hiring writers with untraditional backgrounds and 'John from Cincinnati' scribe Alix Lambert is pleased to be benefiting from his practice. She was working as an extra on 'Deadwood,' and arranged to interview him for a news story when she got her first break. Milch liked her, invited her to join his internship program and when her sample script knocked him out, he hired her. One never knows exactly what draws Milch, and his explanations may still leave one wondering: "My general thought about her is, she's a great American," he explains.

Maybe it's the life experience that appeals. Lambert published a book 'Mastering the Melon,' chronicling her various conceptual projects, including marrying and divorcing three men and a woman as quickly as she could, starting a fake band, and shaving her head. "I'm just like a tumbleweed blowing down a highway, bumping into things," Lambert told the Daily Bulletin, sounding like a product of her mentor. "I have all of this material I've collected and then have to figure out, 'What is it about?' It sounds New-Agey, but I just approach things as they appear to me."

[Daily Bulletin]

Pinch Hitter

'Sopranos' alum Michael Imperioli's latest project puts a new spin on "breaking balls." Researching his role as a catcher in the TV movie 'For One More Day,' Imperioli swung by the "Bronx Zoo" to pick up pointers from Yankee catcher Jorge Posada. "I like to get a lot of different impressions, you know: what they do, where their head's at," Imperioli says. "He's my favorite catcher." The actor also brought his son along to see batting practice - not a bad outing for any 9-year-old. "It's surreal," Imperioli says. "There's just like this magnetic pull that this place has." (photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage.com)

[AOL Sports]

Uma Thurman arrives for the 'Valentino 45th Anniversary Celebration' in Rome. (photo: Daniele Venturelli/WireImage.com)

Bro-Rated

With his success on 'Entourage,' Kevin Dillon seems to have swapped one identity crisis for another. "I used to be (known as) Matt Dillon's brother," he says. "Now, I am Johnny Drama. People have a hard time separating this show from me." As a settled-down dad, Dillon may not share Drama's excessive lifestyle or aging complex, but he certainly remembers the struggle to find work. "For a while, I couldn't even get an audition," he says. "It was always 'Oh, we know who he is. He just isn't right for this part.' I was always like 'Let me show you what I can do.' It was frustrating." (photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com)

[Scripps Howard News Service via Columbus Dispatch]

His Cups Runneth Over

The celebrities may have been a bit of a handicap to their prospective teams in this past Sunday's All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game, but Jeff Garlin hit a home run with his take on the competition. Enjoying the game while kicked back in a recliner, Garlin pointed out the similarity between himself and fellow-celebrity player Alyssa Milano: "We both have breasts." (photo: C Flanigan/
FilmMagic.com)

[MLB.com via LiveJournal]

U.S. vs. Them

There are some fundamental differences between the U.S. and New Zealand, according to Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. And, so far, the U.S. is ahead in terms of being a model fan base. According to Clement, Americans are supportive fans, asking for autographs. "People are nice about (fame) over here. ... In New Zealand they just yell at you, like, 'Don't ignore me because you are famous!'" McKenzie says their humor seems to be more appreciated stateside as well: "We are definitely more famous here. ... New Zealand is where comedy goes to die."

[LA Times via The Journal News]

Sarah Jessica Parker arrives for the 'Valentino In Rome - 45 Years Of Style' Dinner in Rome. (photo: Daniele Venturelli/WireImage.com)

Along Came Polly

As patriarch of the Yost family ('John from Cincinnatti') Bruce Greenwood has to levitate ("I've got a few tricks in the bag") and surf ("I learned...to fall sideways so you don't crack your neck") but there's one thing he won't do. "I'm not in any scenes with the magical parrot [Zippy]. That's a whole contractual thing. I've worked so much with four-legged animals that I had to draw the line at the parrot. I shared a scene with a chicken once, and I realized that no actor in the world can steal focus from a chicken. So no parrots. You got to really dig your heels in." (photo: Eric Charbonneau/WireImage.com)

[TV Guide]

Childhood Drama

'Six Feet Under' doesn't offer much guidance for raising tranquil kids, so Rachel Griffiths has found a different TV inspiration. Besides admitting to cribbing the "naughty chair" from ABC's 'Supernanny,' she says she relies on the show's practical advice: "I think when it comes to parenting, who has time to think philosophically? It's just basic things, like how do I stop my three-year-old conking the one-year-old over the head with a broom?" (photo: Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage.com)

[Celebrity-Babies.com]

Steppin' Up

Underwood takes the helm

Blair Underwood has wrapped shooting on his directorial debut, 'Bridge to Nowhere,' and is now overseeing post-production in New York, while acting in the new HBO series 'In Treatment.' Underwood welcomed the constraints of low-budget feature filmmaking, saying he was jazzed by the process of shooting his film entirely on location in Pittsburgh in 18 days: "We'd hit it and quit it and keep on steppin'! It has its pros and cons, but sometimes what happens spontaneously is even better." (photo: Johnny Nunez/WireImage.com)

[eurweb.com]

Jon Tenney with his daughter Emerson Rose at the 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. (photo: Eric Charbonneau/WireImage.com)

The Die Is Cast

Ready or not, here it comes. Timothy Olyphant has managed a tricky feat — a successful acting career without actually be so famous that he has to worry about his family being chased by photographers. But now that he plays the villain in the fourth 'Die Hard' movie, those days may be over. "The tricky part of the job is that with success, you get the baggage that comes with it. I've avoided it," he explained to USA Today. "It's been a combination of saying no to things and failing miserably at things. Those people you see being followed around by paparazzi, I wouldn't wish their problems on a rat." (photo: Stephen Lovekin/WireImage.com)

[USA Today]

Sworn In

Thank God Susie Essman's parents didn't wash her mouth out with soap — it would have destroyed her career. The comic's famously foul speech earned her a spot alongside Larry David on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and has become so popular that she now dials abusive phone calls for charity — at $2,500 a pop. "Larry wanted somebody who could really curse, who knew how to use the language in that way," Essman says. "He's the only man who's ever really known how to use me."

The comedienne will be performing her largely improvised stand-up act in England, but don't bother her before the show, you might get an earful: "I go through such craziness before I go on. Don't come backstage, it's not pretty! Oh my God, I'm a wreck!" (photo: Amy Graves/WireImage.com)

[The Guardian]

Death of a F**king Salesman

When he wraps up his tenure as Baltimore Mayor on the last season of 'The Wire,' Aidan Gillen will be heading back across the pond to hustle real estate. The Irish actor will be giving his American accent another workout in David Mamet's 'Glengarry Glen Ross,' along with Jonathan Pryce, at the West End's Apollo theatre this fall. The Pulitzer-prize winning play (known for being chock full of f-bombs) depicts a group of desperate salesmen who will stop at little to unload some undesirable property.

[Variety]

Ian McShane and Gwen Humble at the 8th Annual Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. (photo: Mathew Imaging/FilmMagic.com)

Austin from Austin

When Austin Nichols left his Texas hometown, he was still appearing in commercials and student films, but ever since he rode into 'Deadwood' as Morgan Earp, writer David Milch can't get enough of him. The enigmatic writer's loyalty is obvious when Nichols recounts some of Milch's famously intense direction: "The only thing he said is, 'Austin, you're the guy. You gotta be the guy. And to you, I just want you.' And so I'm thinking, does David think that I'm retarded? And it took me a long time to sort of process what he meant by those things. In the end what I just realized is that whatever I do is fine." (photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.com)

[BuddyTV.com]

Arranged for Trio

If you thought 'Big Love' sounded strange at first, wait until Talking Heads front man David Byrne's sonic makeover hits full volume. "In some of the later episodes I'm working on things that get pretty weird, borderline David Lynch territory," says Byrne, who's been composing the soundtrack for the second season. "So, we'll see how that goes over." (photo: Djamilla Rosa Cochran/WireImage.com)

[Los Angeles Times]

Lost and Found

She spent some time inside 'The Mind of a Married Man,' and this fall we'll be getting a peak into her mind as a married woman on the new HBO series 'Tell Me You Love Me.' And then there's 'Lost,' where she plays the mysterious Penelope who appears to be searching for Desmond. But currently Sonya Walger can be found on Broadway in the supporting cast of 'Frost/Nixon,' the Peter Morgan play for which Frank Langella just landed a Tony® Award for his portrayal of Richard Nixon. (photo: Amy Graves/WireImage.com)

[Blogcritics]