Posts Tagged ‘Ashleigh Banfield’

Drew, Justin Make ‘Grey Gardens’

April 15th, 2009

Justin Long waves off questions with a smile before on/off girlfriend Drew Barrymore vamps it up for her Grey Gardens premiere held Tuesday at NYC’s Ziegfeld Theater.

“I think right now in the world of ?fashion things are safe,” the Alberta Ferretti-clad star, 34, says. “What people wear on the red carpet? as opposed to the runway at a fashion designer show – there’s just a? massive discrepancy there. And the sad part is that people get people get annihilated if people don’t like what they’re wearing, so then they dress so that people do not get annihilated and then that’s boring.”

She adds, “I don’t care what people say. I want to have fun with fashion.”  

SEE PHOTOS FROM THE ‘GREY GARDENS’ PREMIERE:

Darling Drew plays Little Edie in the HBO biopic about the eccentric aunt (Jessica Lange) and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. They withdrew from NYC society by taking shelter at their Long Island home.   

What would Little Edie say of her portrayal?

“I only care about if she thinks that I did right by her,” Drew says. “I went away for three months, and I cut off myself from the rest of the world to literally understand what really being isolated is like. To not be in the world of technology, to not have friends and family surrounding me, and I just kept thinking ‘I just want to honor you, I just want to honor you.’”

She adds, “I think one of my favorite things about her is her lack of sensoring – and maybe it’s a character flaw – but I find it wonderful that she’s not afraid to show her emotions. She’s not afraid to be childlike, she’s not afraid to be angry, she’s not afraid to be vulnerable and quiet and calm and sad, and to have that level of range was interesting.”

Why did she lock herself away?

“I have love all around me,” Drew explains. “It was important for me to understand what it’s like to be lonely and not have love, but luckily I had one person … I had the love of my life [kisses Jessica Lange].

Drew admits “I’ve never been so terrified in my life” about pulling off the prosthetic face she wears in the film.

SEE PHOTOS FROM THE ‘GREY GARDENS’ BIOPIC:

Jeanne Tripplehorn portrays Jackie O. “I locked myself away and watched movies and looked at images and documentaries and tried to marinate in her,” she says of her research.

SNL’s Kristen Wiig and Ashleigh Banfield move through.

Oh look, it’s Michelle Obama’s dress designer Jason Wu. Will he design a frock for First Puppy Bo? “I’m always up for a challenge,” he tells me.  What would he do? “I can’t say I’m the most experienced, so we would have to see about that,” he says.

Here comes twice-divorced former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Any thoughts on Mel Gibson’s impending split?

“My only advice is that we pray for him and his wife and his family, and hope it all comes out all right,” he says. “God bless him.”

Grey Gardens debuts on HBO April 18.

Stars Step Out For ‘Australia’

November 26th, 2008

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are greeted by shrieks when they arrive at 6:20 p.m. for the Australia premiere held at NYC’s Ziegfeld Theatre.  

Why should we see this epic World War II drama shot in the Northern Territory and Western Australia – featured in my Australia travel story in the OK! out now?

“It celebrates love and it celebrates life, and I think that sort of thing is good for the world right now,” Sunday Rose’s mom says, with hubby Keith on her arm.

Heavily pregnant Naomi Watts, Famke Janssen, Helena Christensen, John Leguizamo, Padma Lakshmi and Ashleigh Banfield troll through. Lydia Hearst and Kelsey Grammer chat. 

Here’s Olivia Newton-John, who is lovingly holding hubby John Easterling. What does she miss most about Australia?  

“The bird songs in the air because there are more species of birds – and you don’t realize until you leave there – how much song there is in the air that you don’t hear here and you don’t hear anywhere else,” she tells me. “There’s a sense of freedom and beauty in Australia that there is nowhere else.”

Hugh Jackman waves, and wife Deborra-Lee Furness jokes about his swelling ego. “I always thought he was the sexiest man alive,” she laughs.

Director Baz (rhymes with “jazz,” his rep says - ha!) Luhrmann reveals a precious moment he shared with Nicole.

“There’s a big scene that happens under that boab tree, and I bring it back to do close-ups,” he says. “She said to me [flails hands] … Whenever she does this thing with her hands, it’s like she has a fan. I’m like ‘yes, dear one?’ She said ‘I’m pregnant.’ And she burst into tears. I was tearful, too.”

How has Nicole changed since she welcomed daughter Sunday Rose in July?

“She’s changed, but she doesn’t change,” Baz reveals. “She grows, she matures, she learns, we learn, we become more mature with each other. She cuts to the chase more. Time wasting is the greatest lesson of life, I think. How not to waste time, because it’s the most precious commodity.”

Australia is in theaters now.

And, pick up the OK! out now (cover line: “Reese Witherspoon: Back On Top!”) to read about my Australian Outback adventure pegged to the sights you’ll see in this film.

My trip to Northern Territory and Western Australia was out of this world. I stayed in wildlife luxury accommodations such as Bamurru Plains (it was see-through, but they said the animals couldn’t see inside), Bullo River Station, El Questro Homestead (Kylie Minogue’s favorite. I could ’ve spent the rest of my life in their Zebedee Springs!), Home Valley Station and Moonshadow Villas.

My trip was jampacked with scenic cruises, crocodile spotting, waterfall swims, private planes, helicopter flights, horseback riding and Aboriginal art. And, I ate crocodile and saw wallabys. I greatly enjoyed the pink diamonds at Kimberley Fine Diamonds in Kununurra. Hugh Jackman even went crocodile-spotting at the owner’s home. Loved it!

Celebs Play Pranks For April Fool’s Day

April 1st, 2008

Celebs love to catch their friends and family off-guard on April Fool’s Day.

“One time I pranked my mom and told her that I was married,” Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester star tells me. “That was really, really mean. But then she got me back and told me something terrible that I forget, but I really believed it. I fell really hard for that one. So she got me back. It was so mean.”

Mya pulled a fast one on a friend.

“This is really bad,” she warns. “One of my friends is a producer in California – we have a brother/sister relationship – he pulled a prank on me so I figured I owed him one. I was on the House of Blues tour in 2003, and I invited him to one of my shows in Anaheim, California, on a date when I had already performed in Anaheim. So what he did was rented a limo, invited people and showed up the day after I performed. I gave him backstage passes and told him he was on the guest list for seven. He was totally embarrassed, but I owed him one.” (She cracks up laughing.)

Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz likes to dress as a woman on this day of pranks. “Anytime I’m wearing anything I’m probably borrowing it from my girlfriend.” Watch out, Ashlee Simpson!

Daughtry goof while touring with Bon Jovi.

“Chris was up there singing acoustic, so right as he paused, we just slammed our instruments as loud and as metal as we could,” bassist Josh Paul tells me. “He didn’t know what was going on; he couldn’t see us. All he knew was uh! As quickly as it began, it stopped, and he had to go back to the song.”

Chris adds, “Yeah, but it took about five minutes to get to the second verse because there was a lot of hysteria going on after that. It was a very serious song, but I found it very hard to get serious again after that. I was laughing through the second verse.”

Ashleigh Banfield tells me, “I’m no George Clooney, I’ll tell you that. I’m not that clever. I guess I hoodwinked my husband into asking me to marry him. That’s a good one!”

We won’t see Celebrity Apprentice contestant Carol Alt spoofing.

“I’m not a prankster,” she tells me. “I’m more of a serious person, believe it or not. I don’t play pranks.”

Three Doors Down frontman Brad Arnold tells me, “We don’t play pranks much because we know that we’ll get carried away. If one person does something, the other person’s going to come back and it’s just going to get bad.”

Singer Chrisette Michele tells me, “I hated my math teacher. In tenth grade, I told all the kids in math class that at 11:01 to drop their pencils and put their heads down and go to sleep. I will never forget that day. It was wonderful.”

Did they listen?

“Of course they did,” she says. “I was a leader! I didn’t do very well in math though.”

In the spirit of April Fool’s Day, Tom Hanks shares his best dirty joke.

“A guy is standing in an elevator with another guy,” he tells me. “They’re going up a lot of floors. The guy turns and goes ‘excuse me, have you ever been camping?’ And the other guy goes ‘no, I’ve never been camping.’ The guy goes ‘well, if you were to wake up one morning with your pants around your ankles and your buttocks smeared with Vaseline, would you tell anybody?’ The guy says ‘well, I don’t suppose I would tell anybody if I woke up with my pants around my ankles and my buttocks smeared with Vaseline.’ The other fella says ‘you wanna go camping?’”

Have fun, everyone.

Celeb History Buffs Enjoy ‘John Adams’ Premiere

March 14th, 2008 / Author: Valerie Nome

51522607 Tom Hanks, Paul Giamatti, Ed Westwick, Ashleigh Banfield and Bob Balaban share their love for history during the HBO miniseries premiere of John Adams held at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art.

Tom approaches me. “OK! magazine, what hard-hitting issue do you want to slam me with?”

Well, why choose to executive produce a film about John Adams?

“John Adams should be on our money!” the show-boating actor tells me. “He should have a bill of his own. When John Adams was sworn in as the second president of the United States, it was the first time a non-relative was handing over control of the country without the death of a relative or bloodshed in the recorded history of human kind. Now that’s an extraordinary story. Plus, I like cornered hats, powdered wigs and belt buckles on the shoes.”

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