Star bore

Thespian-challenged Hayden ordered to bulk up to Darth Vader weight; Ben Affleck's mom counting on grandkids. Plus: Halle and hubby working it out.

Published December 6, 2002 5:32PM (EST)

Raise your hand if you think what the next "Star Wars" episode really needs is more Hayden Christensen.

You can put your hand down now, Mr. Lucas.

According to the World Entertainment News Network, studio bigwigs have ordered the wooden actor to pull a Renée Zellweger and pack on the poundage in order to make his transformation from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader more credible in the series' final flick.

"Hayden will change physically in this film," a source told WENN. "He'll be bigger."

Couldn't they please order him to be better, too?

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What a load of fertilizer

"I guess it's what it feels like being a sperm charging towards an egg. You don't really know what it is you're doing. You're just doing it, and then the thing happens!"

-- Rupert Everett on recording voice-over work and not knowing what your character will be like until you see the completed project, to TV Guide Online.

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A mother's support

Whatever the rest of us think about Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's chances of making a lifetime match, Ben's mom, for one, is a believer.

She couldn't be happier about her new "really sweet" daughter-in-law to be.

"She doesn't drink, she doesn't smoke or gamble," Mrs. Affleck tells teenhollywood.com, "and I think it makes it much easier for Ben to stay healthy himself."

And if she hasn't already made her endorsement clear by filling her own house with flowers, candles and Lopez's own music in order to set the backdrop for her son's proposal, she'd like to make it crystal clear now.

"I don't think they're leaping into this without giving it a lot of thought," she says. "I definitely think that they're off to a really good start and I expect to be surrounded by mountains of grandchildren."

No pressure or anything.

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Dirty thoughts

"I've got an idea! Let's start a Christina Aguilera metal cover band -- do all her songs, but heavy metal, and just call it 'Aguilerica.'"

-- Foo Fighter Dave Grohl on his plans for the future, in Spin.

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Berry tough times

Halle Berry's husband, Eric Benet, would like to set the record straight. While he "has made some terrible mistakes" in his relationship with his wife, he did not sleep with another woman only days before Berry won her best actress Oscar as has recently been reported.

"I would like to say something. The truth is, yes, Halle and I are going through a personal crisis," Benet told "Access Hollywood." "I have made some terrible mistakes. But the truth is I love my wife. I am so in love with my wife and we are committed to each other, our marriage, and our love. We are united and we are trying to make our way through this the best way we know how."

Berry seconded his emotion, telling the press, "I just love him and marriage is about sticking together through tough times, and we're sticking together and we feel really good about that."

Are you taking notes, Ben and Jen?

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Image is everything

"I remember asking my therapist at the time ... whether it was time for me to die ... cuz I thought no pictures = death."

-- Alanis Morissette writing about her time away from paparazzi after the hype for her album "Jagged Little Pill" began to fade, in Nylon magazine.

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The fresh Smiths of Bel Air?

Speaking of learning more than you ever hoped to about Hollywood marriages, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith would like us all to be intimately acquainted with theirs.

The Smiths are planning to team up with UPN to bring the ins and outs of their everyday life to the small screen -- only they themselves will not be in the show.

According to Variety, the Smiths will serve as executive producers, and Pinkett Smith will work with "Friends" scribe Betsy Borns on the script.

In a new twist to the reality TV phenomenon, the show will evoke aspects of the Smiths' family life -- the fact that it's the husband's second marriage, the wife's first -- but perhaps avoid portraying them as celebrities at all.

Why, that premise sounds almost as exciting as the "Liza and David" show.

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Miss something? Read yesterday's Nothing Personal.


By Amy Reiter

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