Celebrity Parade With Jeanne Wolf

Aug. 8, 2008 — -- SETH ROGEN

There's new competition for those legendary heroes of action Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Make way for Seth Rogen. The paunchy comic who was the unlikely leading man in "Knocked Up" is taking out the bad guys in "Pineapple Express." He and James Franco play a pair of stoners in the middle of some hair-raising car chases and super bad explosions.Seth told me,:

"Um, yeah, you know, we really wanted it to be an action movie. I mean, those are the movies we love. We were big fans of like Shane Black movies, you know, "Die Hard" and Paul Verhoeven movies. So those are the movies that we always wanted to make, you know, "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs," the kind of movies where violence and comedy and characters kind of work together really well. And it was a great time, you know? Yeah, we hurt ourselves. But it was a lot of fun. I loved it."

You'll see Seth next in Kevin Smith's "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." The film is struggling to get an R-rating due to explicit sexual content. Seth insists, "I thought it was sort of romantic."

MICHAEL MADSEN

Michael Madsen stands out in the cast of the new biker epic "Hell Ride" produced by Quentin Tarantino. He plays "The Gent" who can kill you with a smile on his face. Since he comes on like a nice guy before he gets violent, Michael decided he'd wear a tuxedo instead of black leather. But he still looks pretty good on his motorcycle. Madsen says, :

"You know 15 years ago, I used to do that whole thing. I used to ride around with all those guys and their Harleys. And we had the little bike club. And now I have 5 children and, you know, I pretty much stay around Malibu right now. I'm not even riding into Hollywood and going down the middle between the cars and being a daredevil. I don't really have much time for that anymore. But I still ride, absolutely. I mean, how many times in your life do you get to make a biker picture? It was great fun."

As for the mounting body count in "Hell Ride," and shocking sexy scenes, Michael says, What's a biker movie without sex and violence?

AMERICA FERRERA

America Ferrera wasn't known as "Ugly Betty". . . In fact, she was hardly known at all when she appeared three years ago in "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." Now, America is a hit in prime-time on ABC. But she took time out to return to the big screen in the "Sisterhood" sequel. Her biggest challenge turned out to be leaping off a cliff into the sea with her co-stars.America told me,:

"Four of us couldn't jump together because there wasn't enough rock space. So Blake Lively and Alexis Bledel jumped first. And they were fine. And then it was supposed to be me and Amber Tamblyn. But I don't know what happened. At the last second, I just froze. And then I realized, "Oh, my god. The camera is rolling. We only had one take." And Amber is just screaming at me from the bottom. She's like, "Jump!" And then I thought Amber was going to kill me, so I jumped. I was like, "I'm going to die or Amber is going to kill me. But, I might as well jump."

Now, America is counting down the days to the Emmy awards on ABC. She's nominated for best actress in a comedy series and if she takes home an Emmy, it will be her second win.

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