Alec Baldwin Reveals The Secret To His '30 Rock' Performance: Bad Acting

Alec Baldwin has never been a shrinking violet, but his recent rash of revelations (like suicidal thoughts and coked-up alien gunfights) is candid to a fault. Now, he reveals his secret to acting: be bad! More »

Which "Big Stars" Were Grossed Out By Their Portraits In New York?

I sort of loved how most of the actors Dan Winters photographed for New York's "New York Actor" photo essay looked basically like hell. This is not freaking Santa Monica. If someone invented indulgences for all the sins we commit against our skin we'd be the Avignon Papacy. But enough wishful thinking: Liz Smith reports today "some big name stars" were "not amused" by the harsh realism of his portraiture, which Smith credits to his past shooting spreads for Texas Monthly, "where they like things rough and tough." (This assertion appears to have no basis in fact, but it was fun checking out his portfolio.) So: who's the vain aging diva/o who told Liz she wasn't the only one who was put off by Mr. Winters' verisimilitude schtick? Let's examine the evidence: More »

Oscar Brand Still Good For Something

· The five Best Picture nominees have earned $97 million since they were announced, more than twice what last year's nominees made in the same time period. Expect a two-page trade ad from the Academy touting that sum in 248-pt. font over the words "BIGGEST. OSCAR. BUMP. EVER." [Variety] More »

Casting "Judith Miller: The Movie"

Good news for cineaste media junkies! Variety brings news of a film based on the Judith Miller affair!

Rod Lurie will next direct his script "Nothing but the Truth," a drama about a D.C.-based female newspaper reporter who outs a CIA agent and is imprisoned for refusing to reveal her source.Cast is mobilizing for an October production start. Talks are under way for Kate Beckinsale to play the journalist, Matt Dillon the prosecutor, Vera Farmiga the CIA agent, Edie Falco (in her first role since "The Sopranos") the editor of the newspaper that published the story...

Does that make Edie the Times's Jill Abramson? And who will play Time's Norman Pearlstine, who caved in the face of threats from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and told his reporter Matt Cooper to testify? Anyway, interesting choices. Let's see how the cast stacks up against their real-life counterparts? More »

Gossip roundup

· Edie Falco and Stanley Tucci's romance in Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune wasn't great acting. They were having an affair. [Page Six] More »