It's not the best week to be an aging action hero.
The news out of Scotland is that Pierce Brosnan, 48, is having a little trouble fulfilling his action-sequence duties on the latest Bond film. The actor, it seems, has been shaken and stirred during filming by a knee problem, which will delay production by about two weeks.
"Pierce Brosnan has always pursued the character with extreme physicality," a film production spokesperson told the press. "On Friday, Brosnan sustained a knee injury during an action sequence involving water."
Double-0 "oouch."
And Brosnan's not the only macho screen star of a certain age taking his lumps. The indestructible Jackie Chan reportedly suffered a facial injury while performing a stunt while shooting a film in Thailand.
A spokesman for the Hong Kong action hero announced that Chan had taken a tumble while dangling from a sling and landed on his face. He was taken to the hospital and treated for cuts and bruises, but released four hours later.
"There was nothing serious. Everything is OK and the filming is going on as usual. His fans need not worry," Sombat Phukarn, a member of Thailand's National Film Board, told Ananova.com.
But Mel Gibson may be taking the hint. The 46-year-old actor has admitted to the Calgary Sun that he may be a bit too long in the tooth to reprise his role as Mad Max in the action series' fourth installment, currently in development.
"I don't know if my joints would be up to it," he says.
And as for the adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" he's been working on, he's not even thinking of putting his joints through a turn in that.
"I'm way too old for 'Fahrenheit,'" Gibson says. "It needs Brad Pitt at his prime-time, butt-kicking best."
Unless, of course, Brosnan's available.
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Unabsorbent actress
"I cannot absorb living in a world where I have an Oscar for best actress and Denzel doesn't have one for best actor."
-- Julia Roberts sharing fervent hopes for Denzel Washington to win the best actor Oscar this year, in Newsweek.
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The dynasty continues
Speaking of aging Bonds, Roger Moore was among the celebrities to show up to watch Joan Collins wed her fifth husband on Sunday.
Moore, who attended with his girlfriend, Christina "Kiki" Tholstrup, stopped on his way in to tell reporters that he was looking forward to the nuptials.
"They make a splendid couple," Moore said of the 68-year-old actress and her 36-year-old hubby, Percy Gibson, "and I trust he's wearing a kilt."
Not there to see Gibson display his young, virile knees as he wed Collins was the actress' sister, author Jackie Collins. But she swears it wasn't meant as a slight.
"Let's get this straight," Jackie barked at the New York Post when asked about her reasons for blowing off her sister's lavish wedding. "I'm on a deadline for my latest book, and I am chained to my desk."
OK, well, maybe she'll catch the next one.
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Look who's making like Uncle Junior
"When I get home from my day or I can't sleep at night or I'm on a plane, I'm always writing. With the kind of emotions I'm feeling now, I'm always trying to put it in the form of a song."
-- Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who plays Meadow on "The Sopranos," on the songs she wrote for her debut album, "Here to Heaven," in TV Guide.
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Juicy bits
Is the decision to film "Terminator 3" in Los Angeles instead of Canada a hint that Arnold Schwarzenegger may really attempt that run for California governor he's been talking about? The Canadian film people seem to think so. There was "a lot of pressure to keep that film in L.A.," Lindsay Allen, acting head of the B.C. Film Commission, told the Toronto Sun. "A movie this size leaving L.A. would be really bad publicity for Arnold if he decides to run for office." I guess those "I'll be back" promises wouldn't have cut it this time.
Oops! Britney Spears is bringing her coy virgin/vamp act to "Sex and the City." According to the New York Post, Spears is set to star alongside Kim Cattrall (who played her mother in "Crossroads") and her frisky friends on the racy HBO show. She'll play Samantha's oversexed niece. "Samantha thinks her niece is a virgin, but nothing could be further from the truth," a source from the show told the tabloid. Art imitates life?
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