For the last time: No, Camryn Manheim is not related to Christmas-music supergroup Mannheim Steamroller, which has sold some 18 million albums. "Every time I introduce myself to someone, they go, like Mannheim Steamroller?' " says The Practice's Emmy-winning actress, 38. "I wonder, when they're saying 'Mannheim Steamroller,' do people go, 'Like Camryn Manheim?' " Manheim herself jumped on the holiday bandwagon long ago. "For the past six years, Marcia Gay Harden [the actress from The Spitfire Grill] and I and our friends go caroling," says Manheim. "We put together a little songbook, and we sing in the West Village, so if you're in the Village and you hear some really awful singers, it's probably us."
Gun Shy
Waiting 18 years for that Daytime Emmy was a cakewalk for Susan Lucci compared to her singing audition for the lead in Broadway's Annie Get Your Gun. "I was never as nervous in my life as I was doing that," says the All My Children star, 52, who will step into Annie Oakley's boots on Dec. 23 for three weeks while Bernadette Peters is on vacation. "That was really scary." But La Lucci so impressed the producers that they offered her the role permanently should Peters decide to holster her gun for good. Would Lucci consider playing a cowgirl full-time? "I may," she says. "I'm very honored that they asked me, but that's something we have to assess down the road. Bernadette may stay for a long time yet."
Minimum Wage
Hank Azaria was so eager to act with Bill Murray, Susan Sarandon and John Cusack in the new Tim Robbins-directed drama Cradle Will Rock that he agreed to work for scale. Or did he? "Was it scale? I don't think I even got that," says Azaria, 35. "Wait a minute, I have to make a phone call!" Playing the composer of a controversial new musical in Cradle" made me think a lot about artistic freedom," he says. "Understand, I'm not as extreme as some actors who only want to do great art." After all, he starred in 1998's overhyped (and a major disappointment) Godzilla. "A beautiful case in point," agrees Azaria, who married longtime girlfriend Helen Hunt in July, "You know, I didn't study for years to scream, 'Stay, you big lizard, you!' "
Staying Grounded
Sharing screen time with a 4½-in. computer-generated mouse (voiced by Michael J. Fox) was no small feat for the 6-ft-tall Geena Davis in the children's movie Stuart Little, opening Dec. 17. "Stuart Little is a picture about people's calves," says Davis, 43. "He's often on the floor, so I'm tying my shoes a lot. I'm always dropping things so I can get into the shot." Davis even thinks mice are nice, at least in moderation. "I like them," she says. "I'm not very squeamish. But I wouldn't be so thrilled if I found one at home to say, 'Oh, let's get more!' "
Missing Beauty
He has won two Oscars and starred in a string of hits, but Tom Hanks insists he doesn't get tons of movie offers. "There is a huge amount of stuff that I'm simply not available for, so therefore I don't hear about it," says Hanks, 43, who appears in the prison drama The Green Mile. "I don't even want to see that stuff, because if it's really great, I'm going to be bummed out if I can't do it." One role Hanks wishes he had gotten a look at, though, is Kevin Spacey's middle-aged suburbanite in American Beauty. "Yeah, I think I would have [done that]," he says. "But that's after the fact. It's easy for me to sit down in the movie theater and say, 'Oh, man, what a role!' "
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!
