Given her erstwhile penchant for dressing in leather and spikes, it might not come as a surprise to you that Madonna likes it rough.
During the filming of her husband Guy Ritchie's remake of the particularly disturbing Lina Wertmüller film "Swept Away," Madonna insisted that the violence be cranked way, way up. Or so says actor Adriano Giannini, who stars opposite the perpetual pop star in the film. (Adriano is the son of Giancarlo Giannini, who starred in Wertmüller's original version.)
"It didn't come easy for me to slap a woman, especially someone I had grown up listening to," Giannini tells the London Sunday Express. "When I first slapped her, she thought it wasn't violent enough and told me to hit her harder."
And then there was the dog thing.
"On another occasion, I was asked to humiliate her by making her bark like a dog," Giannini shared. "It got a bit masochistic but she's good. She's very professional."
In fact, he added, "She's as tough as a lizard and should be made into a belt, bag and boots."
I take it he intends that as a compliment?
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The naked truth
Unlike Adriano Giannini, "Alias" star Michael Vartan insists he's not uncomfortable in the least when it comes to filming racy scenes.
In "One Hour Photo," Vartan appears naked in a scene with Robin Williams -- and letting it all hang out didn't bother him at all.
"There were a lot of air conditioning jokes made -- even though it was 150 degrees in the room. But that's Robin for you," Vartan tells TV Guide Online. "I grew up in France and played sports all of my life, and not to sound weird or anything, but you see guys naked in the locker room all the time. Nudity is really not a big deal to me."
And Vartan will even go so far as to offer the following bit of advice: "If you've never seen a penis, you need to get out a little more -- whether you're a man or a woman."
Or maybe stay in a little more.
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Listen up, Backstreet Boys and members of 'N Sync
"When we're hugely successful, everybody opens doors. But when it stops, we cry that no one will open doors anymore. But guess what? That's reality. To sit here and say, 'Woe is me, I used to be in a boy band, but no one will give me a job in a movie,' that's just weak."
-- Former New Kid on the Block Donny Wahlberg on getting over your boy-band past, in the New York Daily News.
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Rapped back
Samuel L. Jackson might want to watch his back next time he's hangin' in the 'hood.
Jackson, you may recall, recently said he wouldn't star in a film with a rapper turned actor.
"To take people from the music world and give them the same kind of credibility and weight that you give me, Morgan Freeman, Laurence Fishburne, Forest Whitaker -- that's like an aberration to me," he told the Sacramento Bee. "It's not my job to lend credibility to so-and-so rapper who's just coming into the business."
Well, the rap community is not about to just sit back and let itself be dissed.
"Rappers pack more flavor than a regular actor -- the rap world is full of characters, full of flavor," rapper-turned-actor Snoop Dogg recently told Britain's Radio 1. "The movie world needs that and it's only right for us to join hands and bring something to the table."
Really, Mr. Jackson, can't we all just be friends and get along?
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Correction: A bush is not a limb
All that time away from the column must have addled my brain.
It turns out that Gwyneth Paltrow did not issue the following insight into the dating habits of the British male: "While the English man beats nervously around the bush, the American suitor goes for the female jugular." That observation was, in fact, made by Canadian writer Leah McLaren in an article in the Spectator.
Gwyneth did say, however, that "British people don't seem to ask each other out on dates ... If someone asks you in England, they're really going out on a limb, whereas in America it happens all the time."
Nothing Personal regrets the error -- as well as having to quote Gwyneth two days in a row.
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