Natalie Portman, who plays Susan Sarandon's daughter in Anywhere but Here, says that the Oscar winner didn't mother her to death on the set. "She treated me like a friend," says Portman, 18. "She was not trying to be a mentor or an adviser. She's so unintimidating." Portman hasn't been intimidated by becoming a part of the Star Wars juggernaut either. Next summer she will return to film her role as Queen Amidala in the series' second prequel. "I'm totally looking forward to it," says Portman, adding that she hasn't been menaced by fans of Episode I. "I thought it would be awful, but I can still walk down the street alone and not worry about anyone accosting me."
A Woman's Work
Playing Robert De Niro's cross-dressing neighbor Rusty in the new drama Flawless was a bit of a drag on Philip Seymour Hoffman (Boogie Nights). "I have to admit, this guy wore me out," says Hoffman, 32. "Sometimes at the end of the day I would lower my voice to sound as deep as possible, start talking like I was from Brooklyn and go, 'Enough with this woman thing!' " So don't expect to see the actor parading around in any of Rusty's outré outfits. "I didn't keep any of them," Hoffman says, adding, "I didn't want to end up on any of those worst-dressed lists."
Of Mice and Young Men
Having nearly upstaged Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, pint-size actor Jonathan Lipnicki may now be passed over for a pretty cute mouse in the kid flick Stuart Little, due Dec. 17. "Girls won't go, 'Ewww!' like, 'I'm so scared!' " says Lipnicki, 9, who costars as Geena Davis's son in the adaptation of E.B. White's children's classic. "It's more like, 'Ahhh, he's so cute!' " So is Lipnicki himself afraid of the wee rodents? "Nope, I have three," he says. "One of my mice was named Stuart, but then I noticed Stuart was getting really fat. One day I looked into Stuart's cage, and there were 13 babies in there. Stuart was a Stuette."
The Spirit of Ah-nold
Austrian-born action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger uses faith as his biggest weapon to combat the Devil (Gabriel Byrne) in the apocalyptic thriller End of Days. "I have more faith now than when I was younger," says Schwarzenegger, 52, who is Catholic. "My mother took me to church every Sunday, or I'd get smacked, so to me that was just an obligation. Later on when I came to this country as the bodybuilding champion, I had a chance to rebel. I never went to church. I thought the whole thing was absolutely absurd. Then when you get older, especially when you have children, the circle comes around again, and you get back to where you started. All the things you rebelled against, fought against, you start thinking, This makes sense now!' "
Iron Man
"It's heinous being James Bond," says Pierce Brosnan. Having to prepare for love scenes with not one, not two, but three Bond girls (Denise Richards, Sophie Marceau and Serena Scott Thomas) in his third go-round as 007, The World Is Not Enough, the actor wants it known that he takes great pains to give moviegoers a view to a thrill. "I'm like any woman preparing to show her body in a love scene," says Brosnan, 47. "I lay off the red wine and the cream sauces. And I live in the gym for months before these movies. For God's sake, I lift large weights!"
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!
