While actress Catherine Keener has won raves for her performance in last year's Being John Malkovich, it is her role in the 1989 wilderness thriller Survival Quest that may be the most significant of her career: She met her husband of nine years, Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend's Wedding), on the set. "We got together because Dermot and I were involved in a river accident," says Keener, 40, who costars with Sharon Stone, Jeff Bridges and Nick Nolte in the new drama Simpatico. "I was swimming with a big backpack on, and I got caught in the current and carried way out into the middle of the river." Mulroney came to the rescue. "The producer jumped in too," she says, "but he kept calling me by my character's name: 'Cheryl! Cheryl!' Dermot was more concerned about saving my real life."
Snow Biz
Comedian Chevy Chase, who stars in the new family flick Snow Day, says he learned how to appreciate a good winter storm at an early age. "I grew up in Woodstock, N.Y.—snow days were huge," says Chase, 56. "I'd spend my day with my brother and my dad making four-foot snowmen with heads bigger than basketballs. We also did bad things on snow days. For instance, I know how to get a snowball in the six-inch crack of an open car window. The dream come true was tossing one into the vent of a bus. That was true joy." Not that Chase is encouraging such behavior among today's schoolchildren. "No, kids," he advises sagely, "stay above the law."
Meeting Mister Ordinary
"I can't project myself as being as big a star as Leo," says newcomer Virginie Ledoyen of Leonardo DiCaprio, her love interest in the new drama The Beach. "I don't think this would ever happen for me." The French actress admits she had a few questions about her costar. "Like everybody in the world, I saw Titanic," she says. "And there are so many gossip stories about him that I was curious to meet him." So did DiCaprio live up—or down—to any of the rumors? "He's just a nice guy," says Ledoyen, 23. "Like any guy of 25. Sweet. Playful. He makes jokes. He's very simple. He doesn't act like a superstar. He's really normal, I swear."
Cover Girl
Madonna credits good pal Rupert Everett with suggesting she remake Don McLean's '70s classic "American Pie," which is the first single released from the soundtrack of The Next Best Thing, the drama she and Everett costar in, opening March 3. "At first I was like, 'Don McLean? No way!' " says Madonna, 41. "But Rupert kept bugging me and bugging me. So finally I embraced the idea." In return, the pop diva asked Everett to help materialize things by lending his vocals to the song and appearing in the video. "Yup, he's my backup singer," she says, adding that she gives the British actor high marks as a crooner: "Honestly, he's good. You know, he made a couple of records somewhere in his career. So he can carry a tune."
Living on the Edge
As ex-cop Dewey Riley, David Arquette is proud to have survived the cut—and the cuts—to make Scream 3, the supposedly final installment in the horror series. "When I get these Scream scripts, the first thing I do is look at the last page to see if I'm still breathing for the next one," says Arquette, 28. "I say a silent prayer, 'Please let Dewey survive!' It's funny because my character was supposed to die in the first movie, but I narrowly avoided the knife because I made a few people laugh. I was in an ambulance at the end of the last two movies, so I could have gone either way."
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!
