• February 17, 1997
• Vol. 47
• No. 6

Chatter

By Kim Cunningham

BRAD COMPANY
Skeet Ulrich is a little tired of hearing that he looks like Johnny Depp. "I don't see the resemblance," says Ulrich, 27, "and I don't have Kate Moss on my arm—yet." Currently in Albino Alligator and Scream, he stars in Touch, a drama due Feb. 14. Right now he's working with Jack Nicholson on Old Friends, a comedy in which Ulrich plays a gay hustler infatuated with Brad Pitt—who is not in the movie. He hit on the Pitt hang-up in New York City. "I saw a guy wearing a Princess Di head on a key chain around his waist," says Ulrich. "He told me she was stalking him. I thought, 'That's interesting,' and told [director] Jim Brooks about it. Then I made a cardboard heart with pictures of Brad, which hangs off my waist." So what's going to happen when Pitt hears about this? "Actually, he already knows," says Ulrich. "We had to clear his likeness. Apparently, he said, 'Okay just try not to make me look too dopey.' "

GAG REFLEX
Show business used to make Téa Leoni sick. The star of the NBC sitcom The Naked Truth, currently airing in the slot between Seinfeld and ER, was afflicted with stage fright for years. "I threw up before every episode of Flying Blind," says Leoni, 30, of her 1992-93 sitcom. "I also tossed my cookies before the first 12 episodes of The Naked Truth." But a guest shot on The Tonight Show last year cured her. "When Jay Leno said, 'And now, Téa Leoni,' I gripped a railing backstage so tightly that an assistant literally had to pry open my fingers and shout, 'Go, go, go!' I gagged back my lunch and thought, 'If I can get through the next six minutes of my life, nothing will ever be more terrifying.' And I haven't gotten sick since. It's never come up again. So to speak."

TAKING IT PERSONALLY
Isabella Rossellini guest-stars on Chicago Hope this month (Feb. 10 and 17) as an infertile college professor who wants to adopt a baby. "They wanted [to portray] an independent, intelligent career woman who finds herself middle-aged and without children, like a lot of women in our generation," says Rossellini, 44, who has an adopted son, Roberto, 3, and a daughter, Elettra, 13 (with ex-husband Jonathan Wiedemann). "I generally don't do things close to me, but this was an exception. With adoption, the story is often told only if there is some sense of drama, like Baby Jessica or Baby Richard. We wanted to tell the story of a normal adoption, the kind that happens to thousands of Americans each year." Does she plan to show the tape to her son someday? "Yes, but it will be like 10 years from now when he can follow it."

THE SINGLE GUYS
Matthew Perry won't be taking a date to see his first film, Fools Rush In, a romantic comedy that opens on Valentine's Day. "It's a holiday if you're with somebody," says Perry, 27, "and if you're not, you hope you have a big movie coming out to distract you." The unattached Friends star recently took a European vacation with TV castmates Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer. "It's kind of disgusting, isn't it?" says Perry. "Three guys hanging out is a little sad. Especially since I had a pact with myself that I wouldn't go to Europe until I was totally in love. Then I turned 27 and said, 'You know what? I'm going with LeBlanc and Schwimmer.' " Perry's flair for French—he grew up in Canada—impressed his pals in Paris. "When Schwimmer was trying to get mustard, I was able to come up with the word—moutarde—which was good, because in France, if you're just one letter off, they don't understand you."