Falling Stars
Everyone needs a little help from his friends—even superpower-endowed mutants. For a scene in the upcoming X-Men 2, Patrick Stewart, who plays the wheelchair-bound Professor Xavier, needed to be carried up a snow-covered mountainside in Vancouver by co-stars Halle Berry and Alan Cumming. "I had one arm over Halle's shoulder and one arm over Alan's," says Stewart, 62, who currently stars in Star Trek Nemesis. "They started trudging up this mountain slope, dragging my legs through the snow. Suddenly Halle screams, 'I'm going, I'm going!' And she slides down, pulling me down with her. Alan comes next, and suddenly the three of us were flat on our faces in the snow. We broke up laughing because it was so ironic. Super-heroes? We can't even keep upright in the snow!"
Singular Sensation
George Clooney, who famously told 20/20's Barbara Walters that he would remain a bachelor forever, now wishes he hadn't been so single-minded. "I did that interview 10 years ago, and I've been paying for it ever since," says Clooney, 41, now starring in the sci-fi thriller Solaris. "I made the mistake of saying that the first month after I got famous. Then for five years I played a rogue on ER. It probably was not the smartest thing to say because the truth is, I'm not looking to be a bachelor my whole life. I happened to have just gotten through a divorce," says Clooney, whose three-year marriage to actress Talia Balsam ended in 1992. "I should've just cried; it would've been much easier."
Thinking Big
"When you're short," says the 5'2" Reese Witherspoon, "you have to have a big personality. I like making bold decisions and putting myself out to dangle in the wind." Witherspoon, 26, developed her confidence at the all-girls high school she attended in Nashville. "I really believe in single-sex education," says the actress, who next produces and stars in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, due July 2. "There are no inhibitions. You can walk to school with your zit cream on and your hair in rollers, and nobody cares."
The Sweet Truth
Talk about a change of pace. For an upcoming role Claire Danes, who's leaned toward smaller, quieter films like the quirky drama Igby Goes Down, will play a feisty veterinarian abducted by the cyborg in next summer's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. "I can say, in regards to kicking butt, I am pretty impressive, and I got some real kick-ass lines," she says proudly. The actress, taking a break from her studies after two years at Yale, also had her own expectations reversed upon meeting her costar. "Arnold Schwarzenegger was really smart and I wasn't anticipating that. I mean, he always plays these machines," says Danes, 23. "We got along wonderfully, except for one thing: I used to eat Red Vines licorice all day long on the set, and Arnold would walk up and say, 'Do you know how many carbs are in those?' "
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