KRISTEN BELL PRAISES “DOWN TO EARTH” CHER

KRISTEN Bell admits she was starstruck when she first met Cher on the set of new their movie Burlesque — but insists the music legend was “very easy to be around”.

“She’s so cool and such a great actress,” Kristen said. “I could talk but I was definitely having to take a breath and going ‘I’m in a room with Cher right now’, but she’s so personable and down to earth, it’s not really what you expect, she’s very easy to be around.”

Bell says Burlesque — which hits theaters in November this year — is”about a burlesque club and Christina Aguilera plays a girl who moves from a small town and wants to perform there.

“Cher owns the club and we play best friends, I’m her lead dancer and Christina sort of comes in between the two of us and I’m not very happy about that!”

Bell — who’s currently dating comedian Dax Shepard — recently revealed that she puts her love life ahead of her Hollywood career.

“I think your significant other should be way more important than your work, personally,” she said. “I love working. I don’t know that I’d say I’m a workaholic because I also love maxin’ and relaxin’.

“I don’t think I’m a workaholic but currently, I feel like I’m at a really lovely place and I’m grateful to be where I am so I like working too, but I know what my priorities are.”

Elin Nordegren stayed at Brett Favre's house while visiting Tiger in sex rehab

Where do you stay in Mississippi when you're trying to be inconspicuous while visiting arguably the most famous athlete on Earth? Well, how about staying at the home of Mississippi's most famous native—Brett Favre.

According to reports in Us Weekly, that's exactly what Elin Nordegren did this past week while visiting husband Tiger Woods, who was in a nearby sex rehab clinic.

The magazine reports that Favre was not at the ranch in Hattiesburg, Miss., during her stay.

She was spotted around town.

“She definitely stands out,” a local shopkeeper told the magazine. “She was beautiful. She was walking around alone and trying to keep to herself.”

Lucy Lawless: If you can’t stand the gore, watch something else

Lucy Lawless knows some viewers will be offended by her new series “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” premiering tonight at 10 on Starz.

“I think a lot of people are going to be shocked and they are going to shut off their televisions,” Lawless said in a recent telephone interview from Los Angeles.

“And I absolutely encourage that because if they’re shocked by the first few episodes, it ain’t going to let up. But for the people who have the stomach for it, this is a bloody good yarn.”

Lawless plays the conniving Lucretia, who owns the slave Spartacus (Andy Whitfield) with her husband, Batiatus (John Hannah).

“She does terrible things, but she does them out of desperation and need, which is how most people get involved in criminal activities,” Lawless said. “She is venal, but she is also religious. She is full of contradictions, and my aim is to make her so real and so believable that the audience will say, ‘Yes, you know what? I can see myself doing the same thing if I was in her shoes.’ ”

For the part, the 41-year-old appears topless and in explicit sex scenes.

“Really, I just feel like as long as it’s germane to the scene, it’s not offensive to me,” she said. “If it is relevant and historically accurate, then artistically it makes sense. People in ancient Rome had completely different relationships to people and their bodies and sexuality and the law and religion.”

The former star of “Xena: Warrior Princess” is also happy to not be the one involved in the action sequences. Though some may draw comparisons between “Xena” and “Spartacus,” Lawless thinks they are very different.

“There’s no ‘nudge-nudge, wink-wink’ on this show,” she said. “The conceit of the show is so out there. There’s so much blood. It’s larger than life and very operatic. We had to keep the acting and the characters very real.”

The series also allows her to work with her husband, executive producer Rob Tapert, and film in her native New Zealand.

“For the last few years, we’ve had a lot of separation,” she said. “I was working in Vancouver, he was working in New Zealand. This was a great time for our family to get everybody back under one roof and really enjoy what family means. My home life got so much richer.”

Lawless and the rest of the cast will begin production on season two in April. What can viewers expect as season one unfolds?

“Things get very, very dicey for everybody,” she said. “The stakes just get higher and higher, and you see the frenenemies come out to play. You see that the women are more vicious than the men.”

LUCY LAWLESS SAYS HER NEW TV SHOW IS SEXY, VIOLENT!

LUCY Lawless says her new TV show is gory, sexy AND extremely offensive!

Sounds like it’s worth watching!

The former Xena: Warrior Princess star admits lots of people will probably be offended by Spartacus: Blood and Sand, which premiered Friday night on Starz.

“I think a lot of people are going to be shocked and they are going to shut off their televisions,” Lawless told the Boston Herald newspaper.

The actress insists she isn’t worried if people start tuning out of the program.

“And I absolutely encourage that because if they’re shocked by the first few episodes, it ain’t going to let up,” she said.

“But for the people who have the stomach for it, this is a bloody good yarn.”

Lawless plays the character of Lucretia, who owns the slave Spartacus (Andy Whitfield) with her husband, Batiatus (John Hannah).

“She does terrible things, but she does them out of desperation and need, which is how most people get involved in criminal activities,” said the 41-year-old. “She is venal, but she is also religious. She is full of contradictions, and my aim is to make her so real and so believable that the audience will say, ‘Yes, you know what? I can see myself doing the same thing if I was in her shoes.’”

“Really, I just feel like as long as it’s germane to the scene, it’s not offensive to me,” Lucy said of appearing topless and in explicit sex scenes.. “If it is relevant and historically accurate, then artistically it makes sense. People in ancient Rome had completely different relationships to people and their bodies and sexuality and the law and religion.”save

Katee Sackhoff, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Freddy Prinze Jr. talk Season 8

Katee Sackhoff

Coming off of a DC-set season that even naysayers agree was much, much better than Season 6 (aka “The Season with Mushroom Cloud, the Evil Grandpa, and Rick Schroder”), 24 has moved its base of operations to New York for the eighth season. To reflect the show’s new setting, billboards across America are proclaiming: “New York Gets Jacked.” I don’t know what that means, but I like it.
The show hosted a red carpet premiere in New York last week and EW.com was there to chat with Kiefer Sutherland ask vital questions to the supporting cast. (I labored hard to get top-secret intel, Ausiello-style, but the cast was pretty tight-lipped; thus, this post can only earn a VERY MILD SPOILER ALERT.) The Season 8 premiere kicks off tonight.
Williamson on whether or not his character will break the CTU director death curse: “One of the exciting things about this show is you have to be in the moment. Each week when you get the script, you read through it and you don’t know what to expect…Anything could happen to anybody. And that’s what’s so much fun about this show. My character’s very much alive, but we’re starting episode 19 when we get home.”