For Tia Carrere, playing the sultry Chinese rock-and-roll wannabe in Wayne's World was no day at the doughnut shop. "I had my work cut out for me," says Carrere, 25, an actress-singer from Hawaii. "I had to learn two pages of Cantonese, which was the hardest thing in the world. The cadence has to be just right, otherwise you're saying something completely different. I also learned how to play the bass in three weeks and sang four songs on the sound track." Now Ballroom Blitz, the movie's made-for-MTV music video, is getting heavy rotation on the cable network. "It has always been my dream: my name with the MTV logo under it," says Carrere, adding that she's hoping to record an album soon of jazz-shaded songs. Whoa! Does this mean she's not a heavy metal fan? "I like some of it," she says, "but I wouldn't consider myself a headbanger."
X MARKS THE HOTTEST SPOT
Malcolm X may be overbudget, overlong, and now, overseen by a bond company, but director Spike Lee isn't overanxious. In an interview with the San Francisco Examiner, he put Warner Bros., which partially financed the movie, on notice. "I've got creative control," said Lee, 34, about his bio-pic due this Christmas. "Without me, they don't have a film. It'll be three hours. I'll hijack the negative to Timbuktu before I let them release something less. I'm so glad that Oliver Stone made J.F.K. three hours long. I want the same treatment Oliver Stone got from Warner Bros."
KEEPING HIS EDGE
Brian Boitano, who won the 1988 Olympic gold medal in men's figure skating in Calgary, turned up sans skates in Albertville this year as a guest reporter for USA Today. "I wanted to be there, to see it happen, when my Olympic title was taken by someone else," says Boitano, 28, who became ineligible for the Olympics after turning pro in 1988. "During the men's short program, I was sitting there thinking about putting on my costume, lacing up my skates and just showing up on the ice to see what they'd say. I really felt like getting out there. Unfortunately, I didn't have the guts to do it. But I really felt like it."
WONDER WOMAN
"I'm not your basic action-type female," say Estelle Getty, 68, who weighs about 100 lbs., stands under 5' tall and hates guns. So what is The Golden Girls star doing as Sly Stallone's gun-toting mother in the action comedy Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot? "I turned this film down half a dozen times," says Getty. "I told [producer Ivan] Reitman, 'I don't do guns, car chases or shooting,' and he said, 'OK, you won't have to do any of those things.' He lied. I did all of those things." Her motivation? "Sylvester kept saying, 'Don't be such a wimp. You don't need a stunt double to do that.' I was determined not to disappoint him. I guess I wanted him to think I was macho."
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!
