In this article: Birthdays Last week's Who's News Also: Ask Lorrie Lynch a question about a celeb!

With Hollywood awards season underway, the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Feb. 5 is the ceremony actors seem to enjoy most -- and not just because it's a little looser and more fun than others. It's also the result of a "purer" process. "There's no way to campaign for a SAG Award," president Melissa Gilbert says. The nominating panel is chosen randomly from SAG members nationwide, so it's truly representative. And only actors/ performers vote, because they make up the entire membership. "Last year there was a gasp when Johnny Depp won" for Pirates of the Caribbean, Gilbert says. "But I wasn't surprised, because I knew that actors knew what it took to give that performance." Without a host, the TNT show also proves "actors have an innate sense of timing," she says. "They know when their time is up."

On Inauguration weekend, I can't help but wonder about John Kerry's plans for his political future.
Mina Patel, East Hartford, Conn.

Kerry's official line is that he's "focused on making a difference today, not considering a campaign four years from now." Right. Another stab at the presidency likely depends on who else runs. Kerry must decide the presidential question first. His Senate term is up the same year.

Who is that handsome actor, Hugh Laurie, on Fox's new "House?" A little insight, please.
Sarah Knott, Detroit

He's a married Englishman who likes to play New Orleans jazz till all hours with his kids, ages 11 to 16. With Laurie, 45, on guitar or piano, one son on sax, another on drums, and a daughter on clarinet, they're a regular Partridge Family. "Nauseating, isn't it?" Laurie jokes. "I've been trying to get my wife to sing, but that's not going to happen."

"Seinfeld." "Sports Night." "Party of Five." Actress Brenda Strong has been part of many critically acclaimed TV series. Her audition for "Desperate Housewives," though, was a bit different. The casting people closed their eyes. "Usually I'm watched," says Strong, who plays deceased narrator Mary Alice Young. Try as we did to wrangle some show secrets out of her, Strong knew nothing. "I'm one of those girls who opened their Christmas presents early. So they give me enough to work with but not enough to hang myself." Strong, 40 and married with a 10-year-old son, says the show's success proves that women "who aren't 20, who have an emotional well to draw from, are so much more interesting than a typical ingénue."

Susan Sarandon, who stars in Court TV's "The Exonerated" Thursday, tells me she's a social activist because "I came of age when you were empowered because a war stopped, people were registered to vote, the South was integrated and women burned their bras. For some reason, I stuck with what that generation experienced." "The Exonerated" tells the story of six innocents who spent years on death row. She plays Sunny Jacobs, a falsely convicted cop killer. Sarandon, 58, met Jacobs and finds it "remarkable that someone could triumph and not be bitter. [She] shows how much all of us are incarcerated with our own mind-sets, and the power we have to overcome that."

Is Phylicia Rashad still married to NBA sportscaster Ahmad Rashad? I've seen her interviewed lately because of her work in two Broadway plays, "A Raisin in the Sun" and "Gem of the Ocean," but she doesn't talk about her husband.
Dee Cook, Denver

They divorced in 2001 after 15 years of marriage. The actress, 56, cited abandonment when she filed in 2000. It appeared to be a match made in heaven when the sportscaster proposed during an NFL Thanksgiving Day pre-game show in front of about 40 million viewers. It was the third marriage for both. Their daughter, Phylea, is now 17.

Dennis Quaid, who gets demoted in In "Good Company," knows what it's like to be fired. He got canned from gigs as a clown and a waiter. But his most dramatic "firing" came 25 years ago. "'Urban Cowboy' was written for me," he says. "I read with Debra Winger. Then the studio gave it to John Travolta." Now 50, Quaid admits that "it's taken me a while to relax and be myself." Since splitting up with Meg Ryan four years ago, he has re-evaluated his views on marriage. Last July, he married a Texas real estate agent, Kimberly Buffington. "The secret is keeping intimacy. It's tough to do. My wife is not in the business, so she can come with me [to movie locations]. This is going to be the marriage that works."

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BIRTHDAYS

January 23: Mariska Hargitay, 41
January 24: Mischa Barton, 19; Neil Diamond, 64
January 25: Alicia Keys, 24
January 26: Vince Carter, 28; Wayne Gretzky, 44; Anita Baker, 47; Ellen DeGeneres, 47; Paul Newman, 80
January 27: Bridget Fonda, 41
January 28: Elijah Wood, 24; Sarah McLachlan, 37
January 29: Oprah Winfrey, 51

Contributing: Gayle Jo Carter, Tameka Hicks, Nancy Mills, Frappa Stout, Brian Truitt

Ask Lorrie Lynch a question about a celeb!