Issue Date: May 31, 2009
Summer's best supporting players
Forget Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. Here's a special Who's News look at the season's other most notable actors.
In "Away We Go" (June), John Krasinski shows himself to be a darn good actor. He tells me, "I owe everything to 'The Office,'" which may be true, but in this movie by Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes, Krasinski, 29, makes Jim Halpert disappear and delivers a sweet, supportive expectant dad. Krasinski says he got his ideas about fatherhood from his two older brothers. "I remember how excited and nervous they were and how much of a responsibility it felt like and yet an opportunity," he says. "It was fun to see, and they're fantastic role models as fathers, and, obviously, I probably stole everything from them."
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Kathy Bates says playing Charlotte Peloux in "Colette's Chéri" (June 26) offered the usual trial of a period movie: ornate costumes. "Moving in them was difficult because the under-gear was exactly as they would have worn it," Bates says. "But I had an expert dresser, and we got it down to where we could dress in about 15 minutes so that during lunch I could loosen my corset and relax." After shooting in Paris, Bates stayed for her 60th birthday. "I just decided I was going to spend it there at the Ritz hotel and enjoy myself."
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Get used to that adorable face up there next to Eddie Murphy's -- this kid is going places. She already has worked with Angelina Jolie on the 2010 thriller "Salt." And as Murphy's daughter in "Imagine That" (June 12), Yara Shahidi is an adept little scene-stealer. At 9, she knows the perks of movie work. "[Eddie] gave me a huge basket of presents," she says. But she's also an eager home-schooled student, learning Farsi because "I'm half-Persian," and tinkering with chemistry. "I love doing science experiments. I usually take up all of Mommy's flour."
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Her dramatic part on Fox's "House" gets the notice, but Olivia Wilde says comedy is what drew her to acting: "I only became an actor after going to a taping of "Saturday Night Live" when I was 10 and realizing there was no other profession for me." As Princess Inanna of Sodom in the comedy "Year One" (June 19), she's in her element. "Should I be worried that everyone said, 'Oh yeah, I could see you as the Princess of Sodom?' " Wilde, 25, jokes via e-mail. She held her own with co-star Jack Black and gives him a lot of credit. "He made me feel so comfortable when I really should have been shaking in my toga. He's a warm ... family guy."
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Hank Azaria, 45, is in two comedies: "Year One" (June 19) and "Night at the Museum 2" (now in theaters). But his next big role arrives in early fall when he will have his first child, a boy, with girlfriend Katie Wright. "I am nervous about it," he says of fatherhood. "I got set in my ways, and I feel like I'm sort of paid to be a kid." Indeed. When asked for a favorite off-camera memory from either movie, Azaria picks one from "Night at the Museum": "This is embarrassing, but having this monkey slap me was really fun. I don't think Ben Stiller found it as funny because his actual job was to get slapped by the monkey 5,800 times."
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For Jane Lynch, there is a certain irony in playing Julia Child's sister, Dorothy McWilliams, in "Julie & Julia" (Aug. 7). "I'm not good at cooking," says Lynch, 48. She admits she was at first scared to work opposite Meryl Streep, who plays Child, but she shares a favorite Streep moment: "We were at a restaurant in Brooklyn, and she took my arm and walked across the street with me. I thought, 'Where are the paparazzi when I need them?'"
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BIRTHDAYS
May 31: Colin Farrell, 33; Brooke Shields, 44; Clint Eastwood, 79
June 1: Alanis Morissette, 35; Heidi Klum, 36; Morgan Freeman, 72
June 2: Wayne Brady, 37
June 3: Tony Curtis, 84
June 4: Angelina Jolie, 34
June 5: Mark Wahlberg, 38; Kenny G, 53
June 6: Paul Giamatti, 42; Sandra Bernhard, 54
 Ask Lorrie Lynch a question about a celeb!
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