"It's not that I had too much too soon," says Kiefer Sutherland, who traded school books for screenplays at age 15. "It's that I did too much too fast." Sutherland is explaining why, after making 20-plus films in 10 years and breaking up with Julia Roberts only three days before their wedding in 1991, he left Hollywood for Montana and spent the better part of a year and a half in self-imposed exile. "That time off was the best thing for me," says Sutherland, 26, who's now back at work acting and whose first directing effort, the dramatic TV movie Last Light, debuts on Showtime this month. "I was on a roll, but toward the end of all those movies, I got really mean. I was tired and cranky, and I didn't have a lot left to put in it. It's embarrassing when you stay at the party a little too long. I certainly did."
TALL TALE
At 5'10", Daryl Hannah stands up beautifully next to her beau, John F. Kennedy Jr., who is 6'1". "But it's tall enough to be out of the running for a lot of movies," says Hannah, who found a perfect fit playing the title role in HBO's campy remake, airing in December, of Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, which she co-produced. "When my character grows, she's self-conscious and awkward and feels a bit embarrassed," says Hannah, 32. "I've gone through that.... [As a teenager] I perfected a way of standing to shrink about four or five inches—holding my arms, my hips, to make myself a little smaller. Inevitably the boys who you have crushes on are always a little shorter than you." Or were.
NO FEAR OF FAMINE
Too much isn't enough, according to Rosie O'Donnell, the smart-mouth standup whose tough-girl-with-a-heart persona (and Long Island accent) have been showcased this summer in Sleepless in Seattle and Another Stakeout. "When I started, some women comics were jealous of other women comics, thinking, 'If she gets The Tonight Show, I can't.' My philosophy always was, 'If she did, I can too,' " says O'Donnell, 31, who will play Betty Rubble in the movie version of The Flintstones. "All of us who are working are already in the all-you-can-eat buffet. If you get to the table and there's no shrimp, wait one minute and they'll come out with more. There is no need to push people down."
GETTING HIS IRISH UP
Ben Kingsley, 49, knew very little about chess before he assumed the role of Bruce Pandolfini, the intense and mysterious teacher of a child chess prodigy in the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. "When I read the screenplay, he definitely reminded me of somebody," Kingsley says of Pandolfini, a real-life chess master who served as a technical adviser on the film. "His approach to chess, the way he lives in exile from life, he could be something out of a Samuel Beckett play. So I decided to get photos of Beckett and base my look on him and have an Irish voice, the spiky hair, the clothes, everything." How well did he succeed? Check out the match below.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
