News: Steve Buscemi

Everyone loves Steve Buscemi, one of the oddest-looking and quirkiest character actors in Hollywood, and he’s ideally cast as the voice of a rat in this week’s Charlotte’s Web. Hey, everyone’s got to pay the bills, right?

Next up it’s a return to directing for Buscemi – who’s put in some impressive, low-key efforts with his directorial efforts to date – for Interview. This time he actually could have hit on something that’s not only interesting for its own sake, as his indy-tinged outings have all been to date, but could also have the potential to make some money. Buscemi himself stars as a fading political journalist, forced to go and interview the hottest soap star of the moment – played by our very own rising starlet Sienna Miller (who looks all set to do a post-Tom Cruise Nicole Kidman and prove amply to the world that she’s not just the bit of stuff on the arm of a pretty-boy actor). It’s just played at Sundance, and is getting rave reviews so far.

Then its back to his usual small part in Adam Sandler’s latest, I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry (Buscemi’s been in six Sandler films to date, and has generally been the best thing in all of them), before getting to take the lead for a change in stoner comedy We’re The Millers, as an aging pot dealer who decides that all he needs for his last big score is a pretend wife and kids and a motor home. Finally, he’ll be once again lending his distinctive voice to a somewhat ugly character in the animation Igor – although oddly not the hunchback assistant to John Cleese’s mad professor of the title, as that part’s being taken on by the somewhat less vocally dextrous Christian Slater. But still, might be fun, and is due at some point in 2008.

News: Jeremy Piven

Swiftly making a name for himself as far and away the best thing in the Hollywood-set sitcom Entourage, Piven is venturing into the world of movies with gusto in this week’s Smokin’ Aces, and has a fair few more big screen outings on the way.

He’ll next be seen in The Kingdom, a somewhat topical thriller revolving around a US investigation into a spate of bombings in the Middle East, alongside the likes of Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner and Chris Cooper, and lending his voice talents to the animated comedy Igor, alongside Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi and John Cleese.

The film most likely to get him into the big time, however, is as yet untitled – he will play an estate agent planning a lucrative development in an unspoiled forest who finds that the area’s animals have decided to conspire against him. As he’s proved time and again with Entourage, he can do unlikeable but entertaining with the best of them, so an estate agent could be the ideal role…

News: Elijah Wood

The voice behind the CGI penguin star of this week’s Happy Feet really is doing a good job of maintaining a career after his success as Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. No Mark “Luke Skywalker” Hamill-style fall from the spotlight for this young actor, who has already appeared as an underwear-obsessed stalker in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a sadistic psycho in Sin City, and a violent hooligan in Green Street since he returned from his quest to Mordor.

Frodo – sorry – Wood’s next few projects are yet more deliberately eclectic, yet decidedly interesting, movies, that should once again show that there’s much more to this chap than furry feet, wide blue eyes, and a tendency to look a bit pathetic while evil ghost-like things on massive flying dragons whizz around the shop.

Though it came out in France in May this year, and is scheduled for a US release in April 2007, sadly no UK distributors seem ready to put out Paris, je t’aime – a quirkily ambitious project that counts cult favourites the Coen brothers and Gus Van Sant, Scream‘s Wes Craven, French superstar Gerard Depardieu, Children of Men‘s Alfonso Cuarón and Wong Kar-Wai’s cinematographer of choice Christopher Doyle amongst its many directors. Broken into 18 five-minute segments, each overseen by a different directorial team, Wood appears as a young American tourist in “Quartier de la Madeleine”, written and directed by Cube‘s Vincenzo Natali. Co-stars include the likes of Bob Hoskins, Steve Buscemi, Marianne Faithful, Willem Dafoe, Miranda Richardson, Juliette Binoche, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emily Mortimer, Rufus Sewell and Natalie Portman – so quite why this has yet to hit our screens is anyone’s guess.

Wood will also be cropping up in the hugely impressive ensemble cast of former brat-pack actor turned director Emilio Estevez’s Bobby, revolving around the 1968 assassination of US presidential hopeful (and brother of the assassinated President JFK) Robert Kennedy. Due out in the UK on 26th January, the cast is padded out with the likes of Estevez’ father Martin Sheen, as well as Lawrence Fishburne, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, Ashton Kutcher, William H Macy, Lindsay Lohan, Demi Moore, Freddy Rodriguez, Christian Slater and Sharon Stone. Nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival this year, it’s definitely one to look forward to.

As for Wood’s other projects, again they are typically diverse and interesting. He’ll voice the young dragon Spyro in the latest in the popular computer game series – alongside Brit favourite Gary Oldman – The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, and take on the role of a young man forced in to the US army as the draft is re-introduced in the timely exploration of duty in time of war that is Day Zero. Then, due for release in 2008, he’ll play Albert Einstein in the film adaptation of comic Steve Martin’s successful play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, alongside another impressive cast that includes the likes of Martin himself, Kevin Kline, Juliette Binoche, Sienna Miller, Jason Biggs and Ryan Phillipe. Pretty soon Wood’s going to beat even Kevin Bacon for a Hollywood six degrees of separation…

News: Anthony Hopkins

Veteran Hopkins may be about to hit his 69th birthday (on 31st December), but he’s certainly not showing his age in terms of workload, with three more films already wrapped since finishing his duties on this week’s All the King’s Men.

The one he’ll be most keen to see do well is Slipstream – largely because not only does he star, but also wrote and directed this surreal psychological exploration of a screenwriter (played by Christian Slater) who starts becoming unable to distinguish between fact and fiction. No release date has yet been set, but then again, it is still in post-production.
Next up, Hopkins looks to be moving back to his most commercially successful role as serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Only it seems that copyright has prevented the producers of Fracture from using that name, so instead Hopkins will be known as the altogether less sinister-sounding Ted, a psycho hounding a young assistant DA. Again, a UK release date has yet to be set, though it is out in the States in the Spring. Another familiar role will be in the recently-announced Harry and the Butler, where Hopkins will – following his acclaimed role in 1993’s The Remains of the Day – play a butler, this time hired by an aging blues man, to be played by Morgan Freeman.

Most promising of all, however, the Welsh national treasure will be cropping up as the beseiged King Hrothgar in Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis’s much-anticipated cinematic adaptation of the ancient epic poem Beowulf. With Ray Winstone in the title role and supported by the likes of John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Crispin Glover and Angelina Jolie, it looks all set to be one of the biggest films of Christmas 2007.