Sultry Mexican actress Salma Hayek, who teams with Matthew Perry in the romantic comedy Fools Rush In, doesn't feel she has been shortchanged in the male costar Beauty Index department. "I think every man I've worked with has been really good-looking in a different way," says Hayek, 30, who appeared with Antonio Banderas in Desperado, George Clooney in From Dusk till Dawn, and Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin in Fled. "Matthew in an all-American, WASPy way, Antonio in a Latin way, George in a classic Cary Grant way, and Laurence has a peaceful spirituality that makes him beautiful." And Baldwin? "Stephen is good-looking in a Baldwin way, which has become a style."
THAT'S OIL, FOLKS
Supermodel Tyra Banks, the first African-American to score the cover of the SPORTS ILLUSTRATED swimsuit issue solo, knows how to stuff a wild bikini. And it's not in the gym or the genes. "Believe it or not, I just really know how to pose well," says Banks, 23. "It took me five years to learn what my best angles are." But that's not the only trick in a cover girl's designer bag. "Modeling is about deception," she says. "We wear hairpieces and all this makeup. And the oil on our bodies reflects muscles that aren't even there. I don't have muscle tone, but it looks like I do on the cover because of the oil." So what happens when she shows up at the beach? "Guys might still hoot and holler," says Banks, who is guest-starring this month on Fox's New York Undercover, "but a lot of women are like, 'Look at that cellulite on her butt!' "
PLAYING SOME D
Dylan McDermott, 34, who played lawyers in the movies Steel Magnolias and Miracle on 34th Street, gets briefed again in his first TV series, The Practice. He portrays an idealistic Boston defense lawyer on the hour-long drama from producer David E. Kelley, which begins March 4 on ABC. McDermott's biggest challenge has been memorizing the long scripts. "It's not like the movies. I used to take like five days to learn four pages, and now I can learn 52 pages in three days," he boasts. How did he get himself up to speed? "I got these memory pills from the health-food store, and I took a memory class at home—the tapes, the whole bit." Now McDermott hopes to impress his friends. "When they see this show and all the people I keep getting off," he says, "they're going to be coming to me for advice."
IT DON'T MEAN A THING IF IT AIN'T GOT THAT VING
"A lot of people think that I'm this mean, bad mother—pardon my language," says Ving Rhames, 34, best-known as Pulp Fiction's menacing Marsellus Wallace. But the Juilliard-trained actor now plays a hero in Rosewood, the period drama about an African-American town. "With my physicality, I can make characters seem superhuman," he says. "People see me and think, 'Boom! He's the man.' " But sometimes Rhames has his doubts. In London last summer, he and his wife, Valerie, left a theater late at night: "Some skinheads started running after us, yelling, 'Marsellus Wallace!' There were 20 of them." So did he confront the gang? No way. "I grabbed my wife and started hauling ass," says Rhames, who stopped when he realized what they were after. "Turns out they just wanted an autograph. I was so relieved."
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!
