• February 21, 2000
• Vol. 53
• No. 7

Insider

By Kelly Carter

Don't mess with Nicolas Cage on the set, even when he's making a romantic comedy. Cage was recently filming Family Man at Los Angeles International Airport. The scenes were shot overnight, sometimes until 5 a.m. A stern-faced Cage kept his distance throughout the shoot, pacing back and forth before cameras rolled, and didn't talk to anyone not directly involved in his scenes. In fact, extras and spectators were instructed not to speak to Cage, not to approach him for autographs or ask him to pose for photos. The warning played out later, when, in the middle of a scene, Cage looked at an assistant director and said, "Get out of my sight, dammit!" Explains Family Man producer Marc Abraham: "Nic is an actor of tremendous focus and concentration—as much as anyone I've worked with. So he's not someone who, when he is preparing to do a scene, is talking to anybody."

After six years on ER, Julianna Margulies decided to turn down a $27 million contract offer from Warner Bros., and it was her father's words that clinched her decision to leave the show. "He said, 'Have you ever done anything for the money?' I said, 'No.' He said, 'What does your heart say?' " Well, her heart told her that money doesn't buy happiness. "The problems I had as a waitress I still have," Margulies says. "I love having money. But it doesn't make your problems go away. I say go with your heart."

Wonder what it's like to kiss Felicity star Keri Russell? It's "work," says Scott Foley (Noel), who adds that they both have significant others. But guest star Simon Rex says his love scene with Russell was "wonderful," adding that she "made me take a breath mint, an Altoid. I thought that was cute."

Long before playing Sally Hemings's mother in the CBS miniseries Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (Feb. 13 and 16), Diahann Carroll attempted to bring attention to the story. "I tried to produce [a show on the subject] 25 years ago," Carroll says. "That was before DNA [evidence] about a relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. I was laughed out of almost every studio and told that it was not true. When I went to visit Monticello, they left me standing in the hall when they learned I wanted to do it as a project. Now, with DNA, there is no denial."

The Green Mile's Michael Clarke Duncan, a former ditchdigger, still hasn't gotten used to the perks that come along with his new celeb status. He giddily showed me a $10,000 platinum watch given to him by Concord, saying, "I don't have to buy anything." Up for an NAACP Image Award on Feb. 12 in Pasadena, Calif., Duncan said, "Last-year I wanted to come and see the NAACP Image Awards, and I couldn't get a ticket. This year I'm nominated for an award. I think I've got a couple of tickets coming now."

Fast take: I hear that David Letterman's recuperation from his quintuple-bypass heart surgery took him to St. Bart's.

Nancy Perry Graham is on vacation

• Contributors:
• Hugh McCarten.

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