At 23, she has already appeared in 10 films, but Reese Witherspoon recalls that she sure wasn't showbiz-savvy when she auditioned for Cape Fear eight years ago. "I had just finished Man in the Moon. It was my second audition ever," says Witherspoon, who currently costars with Matthew Broderick in the high school comedy Election. "My agent told me I'd be meeting Martin Scorsese. I said, 'Who is he?' Then he mentioned the name Robert De Niro. I said, 'Never heard of him.' " The actress, who lost the role to Juliette Lewis, would soon have the fear of the two-time Oscar winner put in her. "When I walked in. I did recognize De Niro, and I just lost it" she says. "My hand was shaking, and I was a blubbering idiot."
Thumb first
"To be on Jeopardy! is the highest risk of dying of embarrassment," says director Garry Marshall, who put his dignity on the line as a contestant on Celebrity Jeopardy! last week. (He and Jane Seymour lost to musician Graham Nash.) "The trick is the buzzer," says Marshall, 64. "It's thumb-and-brain coordination. If you push the button [first], then you can take a breath and think. My thumb seemed to be a little slower because I would think and then I would hit." At least it wasn't a total loss for Marshall, who picked up $10,000 for the Los Angeles Free Clinic—and, possibly, some valuable movie research. "I was looking around while I was there," says Marshall, whose next film, Runaway Bride, reunites his Pretty Woman stars Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. "Now I want to do something about quiz shows."
Rat attack
Filming The Mummy, Rachel Weisz discovered that being an action heroine isn't a glamorous job. "It wasn't nice to have a rat put on your stomach," says Weisz, 28, of one particularly repugnant scene. "The rat didn't just stay there, he started to crawl up to my face. It was disgusting. There was a girl next to me who was supposed to be dead. She was a girl mummy. I involuntarily tossed the rat in the air and it landed on her. Suddenly she became very alive."
Lemmon aid
Although Jack Lemmon has costarred with Walter Matthau in at least 10 movies, he teams up with another Oscar-winning veteran, George C. Scott, for a remake of Inherit the Wind, airing May 29 on Showtime. Did he suffer from Walter withdrawal? "Well, I missed him as a pal, but not as an actor," says Lemmon, 74. "When you have George C. Scott, you don't miss anybody."
Dim and dimmer
Suzanne Somers, who gained fame as ditzy blonde Chrissy Snow in the '70s sitcom Three's Company, may pair up with another TV towhead, Jenny McCarthy, for a movie. "Jenny and I are working on a project in which we play the two dumbest women in America," says Somers, 52. In the meantime don't hold your breath for a Three's Company reunion. "It will never happen," she says. "I don't think Joyce DeWitt is even talking to me, but I do see John Ritter—everything is fine with us." And Somers, who has a new diet book, Get Skinny, proudly reports she has still got the bod to reprise her Company role: "I can fit into Chrissy's short shorts!"
Food for thought
Soul Food's Mekhi Phifer plays a black man wrongly accused of killing a white man in the 1940s death-row drama A Lesson Before Dying, airing May 22 on HBO. Thankfully, the grub on-set didn't taste like prison food. "It was good, but it wasn't as good as Soul Food," says Phifer, 24. So what would he want for his last meal on death row? "I don't think I'd be hungry," he says. "I wouldn't be thinking about food."
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