Paul Walker foisted a bit of Method acting on his child costars, Cameron Bright and Alex Neuberger, both 13, while filming the Mob thriller Running Scared. "Sometimes they'd say, 'Hi.' I'd give them one look and not say 'Hi' back—they'd be freaked," says Walker, 32. "It gave them an edge. [Later] I'd tell them I did it on purpose, and they'd say, 'We knew that.' I'm like the evil babysitter." But Walker threw some sugar in with his spice. "They were my excuse to play football, soccer and Xbox. I'd call it 'vital research,'" he says. "I have no problem being 12."
MADSEN: LOHAN FAN
They didn't go clubbing, but Virginia Madsen did spend a lot of free time recently with Lindsay Lohan—along with the rest of their Prairie Home Companion costars Meryl Streep, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson and Lily Tomlin. "We didn't have trailers, so Lindsay would hang out with us," says Madsen, 44, now starring in Firewall. "There was nowhere else to go. Her mom wasn't [with her], so we all embraced her. She was like our kid. She had the most fantastic energy. Everyone was like, 'Wow, look at that.' I don't know why, but there's something about her I adore. She was like a wild pony."
McCONAUGHEY'S SET CEMETERY
"It was all too weird and honestly sad," says Matthew McConaughey, 36, of the passing of his chipmunk costar, who was supposed to bite him in one Failure to Launch scene. "Look at this scenario: You're in the woods, you've got a chipmunk wrangler and the chipmunk with the biggest [résumé] in the business. She makes it halfway through the day. Then all of a sudden everyone in the woods gets really quiet, whispering, 'The chipmunk died, the chipmunk died.'" A less-esteemed critter subbed in, but McConaughey and the crew were moved enough to hold a funeral procession. Says the actor: "She was No. 1. She had her SAG card and everything."
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!
