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Thursday, June 4, 2009
Q: Whenever you ask a star about the one actress they look up to, it seems they all say ‘Meryl Streep.’ Who does Streep look up to?
A: In person, Meryl is funnier than you’d expect her to be and very generous in praising other actors. I was tickled to see her carrying a reporter’s notebook in her upcoming movie with Tom Cruise, Lions for Lambs. I think of the times I’ve talked to her with one of those skinny notepads in my hand. Meryl says that getting ready to play a top political journalist was a pleasure for her since (like me) she’s a total “news junkie.” Which brings me to your answer. “Christiane Amanpour is my hero,” Meryl says. “I really admire people who get out on the front lines and bring us back the story—who are not pushed by emotion to one side or the other. But what such a woman doesn’t want to tell you is the harder thing to find out—and that’s what makes her a very intriguing kind of character to play.” It’s fun to see her as Janine and Tom Cruise as a smooth senator verbally duel in their scenes. Lions for Lambs is all fiction but I had to wince at the reality of watching a journalist and a politician, each with their own agenda, elegantly battle it out about the current war. Meryl was taken with Tom—how can you help it? As for the senator he portrays, “He reminded me of an amalgam of Rick Santorum and John Edwards,” Meryl smiles, with an expression as enigmatic as the reporter she plays.
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Q: Damian Lewis, who plays Charlie Crews on the new show Life, looks amazingly like Steve McQueen. Are they related?
A: No, they’re not related—but you’re not the only one to note the uncanny resemblance. And Lewis probably doesn’t mind the comparison.
“I probably don’t mind is right!,” he once said in an interview. “I love it, I’m going to put it on my gravestone.”
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Q: Russell Crowe’s 3:10 to Yuma is in theaters, and I’ve already seen trailers for his new movie, American Gangster. Both seem like tough roles. Has being a dad really softened the actor?
A: It takes a lot to upstage Russell Crowe, but Charles Spencer Crowe stole his scene with the Academy Award winner in a New York minute. “Charlie,” as his doting dad calls him, is Russell’s very blond four-year-old son. The child accompanied him and co-star Denzel Washington to a round of press interviews for American Gangster. When his daddy asked, “Charlie, would you rather sit in the back of the room or on my lap?” Denzel chortled, “You call that a choice?” Duh. Charlie climbed into his father’s lap and listened to half of the answer to a serious question about how Russell got into his role of playing a cop. Then he announced, “I think I’ll tell some jokes now.” The ever-intense actor is famous for getting testy when reporters interrupt him, but he sweetly said to Charlie, “OK, tell us one.” The four-year-old stood up and, with the confidence of a stand-up comic, asked, “Why did the chicken stop in the middle of the road?” Denzel volunteered, “Because he couldn’t get to the other side?” Charlie took a beat before delivering the punchline in an Aussie accent too thick to penetrate. Russell translated, “Charlie said, ‘You’re wrong. It’s because he ran out of juice.’ Of course, I had to find out how Russell would feel if Charlie followed in his footsteps. “I’m not going to stand in the way of it,” he says. “But I’m not going to create the opportunity because I just don’t think that’s ever healthy. My preference would be that my sons find something far more important to do with their lives.”
Then he added, “But who I am to talk. I did my first TV show when I was six.”
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Q: I am a great fan of Pernell Roberts who was on the first six years of “Bonanza.” He is the only one of the original four still living and I am wondering where he is now and what he is doing. Did he remarry, does he have a girlfriend and does he do any acting now? Also, a few years ago, I thought I saw him as a spokesperson for a Christian Children’s Network advertisement. Does he still do this kind of work?
A: Roberts, who has been married three times, divorced his last wife, Kara Knack, in 1996 after 14 years of marriage, according to Wikipedia. He is now retired—and made his last TV appearance (to date) on a 2001 episode of Diagnosis Murder. As for the Christian Children’s Foundation ads, that’s not him—it’s TV actor and Roberts look-alike Alan Sader. He’s been their spokesman for 15 years.
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