TV Guide Author: charlie.mason

Babe: The Pig's Tale Continues?

As sublime a tearjerker as it was, 1998's Babe: Pig in the City didn't bring home the box-office bacon that its predecessor did. But, according to E.G. Daily  the voice of the porcine protagonist  that little piggy still may be coming back to a multiplex near you. "There was talk [about another sequel] a while back," she tells TV Guide Online. And if the pig flies, she'll be as eager to sign up as a hog is to chow down. "I'd do it in a heartbeat!" In the meantime, Daily hopes that director George Miller will be cleared of charges that he made Pig in the City too bleak for children. "After they edited it, it wound up being darker than it was originally," asserts the actress, an on-camera mainstay in 1980s teen flicks such as Valley Girl. "If they'd released a director's version, it would've been better. "It's still a piece of art," she adds. "It is dark. But I think it's a masterpiece." Having mouthed off as carto

Tue, Jan 2, 2001

On the Record: Sandra Bernhard

When most people think of Sandra Bernhard, they think of the acerbic funny lady with the big mouth, not the versatile song stylist with the golden pipes. But that finally may be changing. Her performance at last season's Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS tribute to Elton John started Rosie O'Donnell singing her praises, and her appearance this month on O'Donnell's talk show may have opened even more doors for her music career. "I have a new manager who's actually from the music world," she tells TV Guide Online. "And there's somebody out in L.A.  I'm not going to say who until everything's signed  who's seemingly pretty interested in doing a serious record with me. So hopefully that will come together." Between acting gigs, such as her upcoming February-sweeps Will &amp; Grace guest spot, the former Madonna galpal always has incorporated original tunes and carefully chosen cov

Fri, Dec 22, 2000

Who Says: Grinch Secrets Revealed!

Moviegoers may regard Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas as the best present they've gotten this holiday season. However, making the blockbuster wasn't all high jinks and Who-pudding, according to Suzanne Krull, the character actress who modeled her Shopper Who counterpart after 1940s femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck. "My skin actually repelled the make-up, so my prosthetics were always being reglued on," she tells TV Guide Online. "I called myself Leper Who  it looked like my skin was falling off!" In time, the fake snow that swirled around the set also gave Krull bronchitis and nosebleeds. So, come lunch hour, she rarely hankered for roast beast  which was just as well. "Salad dressing takes off your prosthetics," explains The Next Best Thing co-star (as Madonna's confidante). "And since I couldn't breathe through my 'snout,' I lived in fear of choking to death because I had to breathe through my mouth while eating."

Tue, Dec 19, 2000

Good Men Suddenly Hard to Find

When a freshman series gets suspended before completing its first semester, the odds aren't terrific that it will earn a passing grade for the year. But don't tell that to John Hensley, the up-and-comer who plays Gabriel Byrne's son on ABC's promising Madigan Men. "I've heard we might come back in January or March" following the hiatus that begins after tonight's 9:30 ET broadcast, he tells TV Guide Online. "The show's got a lot of potential. Already we've done one or two episodes that I think would stand up against any sitcom. "Considering that it's our first season," he adds, "that ain't bad." Still, Hensley acknowledges that changes are in order, both on the soundstage and in the executive suite. "We're trying to find our legs," he says, adding that perhaps there is a better place on the schedule for the multi-generational program than Fridays  historically, the domain of less sophisticated

Fri, Dec 15, 2000

Angel She-Devil's Fright Night

Angel viewers may get the heebie-jeebies merely watching the horrifying high jinks of the title vampire's old flame, Darla. However, it's playing the born-again party ghoul that freaks out Julie Benz. In fact, the Nov. 28 episode alone forced her to conquer not one, but two of her greatest fears: blood... and singing. "Anytime we have fake blood on the set," she tells TV Guide Online, "I'm ready to hurl." So when Darla's transformation back into a creature of the night called for her to lap a little O-negative off the chest of Juliet Landau  aka Drusilla, the battiest of Angel's exes  Benz turned positively green. "I had my eyes closed so I wouldn't have to look at it," confesses the actress, who first sunk her teeth into her role in the pilot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the series that sired Angel. "I'm a wimp."

Tue, Dec 12, 2000

Grade-A B-Movie Stages a Comeback

A few more folks probably are looking forward to the next Star Wars installment than a follow-up to the 1984 sci-fi comedy/thriller Night of the Comet. But writer-director Thom Eberhardt still is considering making a sequel to his cult classic, about a couple of Valley girls thrust into combat when Halley's Comet transforms Earth's population into zombies. "There was always talk about doing another one  or even a series," he tells TV Guide Online. "Two years ago, Fox Family Channel  having decided that volcanoes and avalanches were excellent family fare  was running out of disasters. So I pitched them one of the few that they hadn't yet done. "But they had a better idea  a remake of Night of the Comet," he continues. "I asked if its writer-director might have a deal concerning remakes, and they said, 'Whoever he is, we can buy him off.' They were embarrassed when I revealed myself as that very writer-director. However, I a

Tue, Nov 21, 2000

2000 Emmys a Laughing Matter

Although the 52nd annual Emmy Awards telecast started off with a predictable (but raunchily funny) Survivor spoof, the ceremony itself was shocking: It didn't feel like 13 weeks on Pulau Tiga (and, in fact, ran over by just two minutes). A lot of the credit should go to host Garry Shandling, who relied heavily, and very successfully, upon the insecure, sexually ambiguous Hollywood-insider persona that he perfected on his HBO sitcom The Larry Sanders Show. Whether furthering his flirtation with David Duchovny (playing himself as an overly familiar bathroom attendant in one of a series of "behind-the-scenes" skits) or going off-script and inviting the trophy girl to introduce the next presenter, the funnyman seemed utterly in his element, more like he was presiding wittily over a gathering of business associates for whom he has only grudging respect than anchoring a stuffy black-tie event. Case in point: Paying Ray Romano a

Mon, Sep 11, 2000

What the Bleep Went Down at the VMAs?

During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards preshow, Madonna phoned in and joked, "This will be the only time my children will be allowed to watch television." Less than three minutes into the ceremony, after co-host Shawn Wayans was bleeped five times parodying last year's emcee Chris Rock, many other parents undoubtedly decided that this would be the last time their kids would be allowed to do the same. Right off the bat, by giving the mike to Shawn and Marlon Wayans  the writers/stars of the raunch-infested Scary Movie  MTV let it be known in no uncertain terms that this wasn't going to be your mother's VMAs. Furthermore, if you don't find mooning uproariously funny, as did the ceremony's otherwise poker-faced, all-star audience, it probably wasn't going to be your VMAs, either. Over the course of the three-hour freak show, the competition grew ever hotter, but more so for the spotlight than for moonmen: Limp Biz

Fri, Sep 8, 2000

MTV Puts Madonna Second to Nunn

In 1982, a decade before MTV spanked Madonna for her S&M-themed "Erotica" clip by playing it only after midnight, the network just said no to "Sex (I'm a&#133;&#160;)," the video that put the new wave band Berlin on the map. Yet, even though it isn't the group's bad-girl singer Terri Nunn but the Boy Toy who has gone down in rock history as the tube's most notorious pop tart, the divas aren't about to duke it out on Celebrity Deathmatch. "My fortunes have gone up and down just like anybody's," Nunn tells TV Guide Online, "but I never felt like I wasn't given my due. I can't say that." The former teen starlet, whose intense visage and two-tone hair kept Berlin filmettes such as "The Metro" and "No More Words" in heavy rotation throughout the Reagan era, doesn't merely talk about achieving perfect harmony with her successor, either: On the recent Virgin Voices tribute album, Nunn performs the Material Girl's "Live to Tell." And i

Tue, Sep 5, 2000

MTV Puts Madonna Second to Nunn

In 1982, a decade before MTV spanked Madonna for her S&M-themed "Erotica" clip by playing it only after midnight, the network just said no to "Sex (I'm a&#133;&#160;)," the video that put the new wave band Berlin on the map. Yet, even though it isn't the group's bad-girl singer Terri Nunn but the Boy Toy who has gone down in rock history as the tube's most notorious pop tart, the divas aren't about to duke it out on Celebrity Deathmatch. "My fortunes have gone up and down just like anybody's," Nunn tells TV Guide Online, "but I never felt like I wasn't given my due. I can't say that." The former teen starlet, whose intense visage and two-tone hair kept Berlin filmettes such as "The Metro" and "No More Words" in heavy rotation throughout the Reagan era, doesn't merely talk about achieving perfect harmony with her successor, either: On the recent Virgin Voices tribute album, Nunn performs the Material Girl's "Live to Tell." And i

Mon, Sep 4, 2000

"Dead" Dad Gives Landau Good Grief

As Buffy the Vampire Slayer is praying to resurrect Drusilla, the blood-sucking bad ghoul she played throughout the show's second season, Juliet Landau would be the last person to speak ill of the dead. Yet even she concedes that her dad and Oscar-winning Ed Wood co-star Martin Landau is rather "stiff" in their scenes as a father and daughter in the independent film Carlo's Wake. "It's his character's wake," she explains to TV Guide Online, "so I actually played opposite a life-size cast of him [in a coffin] for the entire shoot! We didn't get to work together at all." Nonetheless, the second-generation starlet (whose mother is Barbara Bain, Pop's leading lady on the 1960s Mission: Impossible series) had no trouble scaring up genuine emotion when staring down "the nearly departed." "Rick Baker, who did the make-up for Ed Wood, made the cast," she notes, "so it was eerie." In fact, so realistic was the appear

Mon, Aug 21, 2000

Casualty of Star Wars

When Hayden Christensen was picked to play Anakin Skywalker in the next Star Wars installment, many a Hollywood hopeful considered throwing himself on his lightsaber. Yet, simultaneously, a contender for the role of Princess Leia a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away was breathing another sigh of relief that she never was asked to wear her hair like a set of headphones. "Nobody had any idea that the [original] movie would be so big," Terri Nunn, front woman of the trailblazing techno band Berlin, tells TV Guide Online. "But I''m still glad I didn't get the part. If I had, there's no way I could've been a singer. It just doesn't follow." After Carrie Fisher won Leia's crown, Nunn's music career went into orbit: So enduring is Berlin's 1986 Top Gun love theme, "Take My Breath Away," that it's probably still in the jukebox of a certain Mos Eisley cantina. More recently, the vocalist revamped her old group's lineup and produc

Tue, Aug 1, 2000

Buffy Baddie Coming Back?

Although the statement might turn the title character of Buffy the Vampire Slayer paler than a ghost, series creator Joss Whedon can't wait to utter it: Drusilla is coming back. Currently, the show is negotiating with Juliet Landau to reprise her role of the unhinged English vamp who broke Spike's heart and "necked" with Angel. "I have not heard anything final about a deal, but we are interested in seeing her either on Buffy or [its spinoff] Angel," Whedon tells TV Guide Online. "I can't make any promises, but we are definitely investigating the idea." Since Drusilla's exit in Buffy's second season finale, the WB hit may have lacked a certain bite, but it has hardly sucked ? in fact, it just racked up its first major Emmy nomination. So, naturally, Whedon wants to ensure that the long-awaited return of the psychic psycho will draw blood, so to speak. "We have to make sure that it's the worst possible time for Spike," he says. "Also, we

Mon, Jul 31, 2000