Billie Piper does such a good job inhabiting the character of Belle de Jour on Secret Diary of a Call Girl, it’s hard to imagine anyone else as the saucy London escort. But a real woman lived those adventures — and blogged about them — well before Piper earned the role.
The Diary Season 3 premiere on Monday will feature Piper interviewing her real-life counterpart, Brooke Magnanti, who recently came out in the press. Turns out, the real Belle is a medical researcher with a Ph.D. who found the flexible hours and good pay of an escort quite appealing when she …read more

Matt Le Blanc is officially coming to Showtime in Episodes, the comedy about a British TV show being made over for American audiences. While the network announced the project this fall, we can now see clips of the former Friends star in action.
Check out Le Blanc (now about 30 pounds heavier and a good deal grayer than in his days as Joey Tribbiani) as he auditions to play a fictionalized version of himself on the new show.
His self-parody got good reviews from critics at this weeks TCA winter press event, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Especially humbling — when he realizes …read more

Justin Kirk took his character, Andy Botwin, to new heights last season on Weeds – the General Lee! The Mountain Man beard! The wooing of Nancy’s ob/gyn! — and we’ve missed him on Showtime ever since Season 5 wrapped.
Kirk’s now turning heads off-Broadway in the play The Understudy. He plays the title character, a struggling  actor named Harry who subs for a pretty but talentless star played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar.
“It’s been a while since I did a play,” he said in a recent interview with Backstage. “It’s a different muscle. You have to give yourself permission to have your process …read more

He may peddle pot to tweens and pal around with Mexican enforcers on the southern California set of Weeds, but young actor Alexander Gould’s real life is more Agrestic than Ren-Mar.
In a recent interview with Heeb magazine, Gould went along with a stoner-themed photo shoot, humoring it with an “it’s all acting” shrug, while his manager mom fretted about his image.
Gould has been acting since he was a tot, so he’s pretty nonchalant about the process. Weeds is now on hiatus after Season 5. The series wrapped up with a season finale that found Gould’s character, Shane Botwin, …read more

Emmy-winner Toni Collette looked exhausted yesterday when she arrived in her native Australia after wrapping production on United States of Tara. The Showtime series’ second season completed filming in the States last week.
Collette took charge of daughter Sage Florence’s stroller at the Sydney airport, while her musician husband, Dave Galafassi, handled the family’s luggage. The long flight likely meant that Collette, who turned 37 on Saturday, spent her birthday in the air.
Here, she looks every inch the travel-weary, harried mom. It must be tough to juggle motherhood and an intercontinental career, yet Collette makes it look easy on screen. More …read more

So his Friends spinoff didn’t exactly catch fire. Forget about Joey — Matt LeBlanc’s headed back to TV in a new project for Showtime, the network announced this week.
The comedy, called Episodes, features LeBlanc playing himself as the star of a British TV show that’s been imported to the States (think Coupling). Hilarity ensues as Hollywood execs transform the series into a show unrecognizable to its creators across the pond.
In Showtime’s annoucement of the new project, LeBlanc said he’s excited to work with Showtime and with Episodes creators David Crane (Friends, The Class) and Jeffrey Klarik (Mad About …read more

Oodles of stars from your favorite Showtime series gathered at the Huntington Library in Pasadena earlier this month to mingle with their network cousins from shows on CBS and The CW.
Check out how grown up Weeds‘ Allie Grant looks — and how well Dexter’s Julie Benz and United States of Tara’s Rosemarie DeWitt carry off their strapless yellow frocks, in bold marigold and palest lemon respectively (we can’t give the same high marks to Toni Collette’s odd-looking red taffetta and velvet number).
For those of you who like your eye candy with a tiny bit of facial hair, take a gander at …read more

In her life after Brotherhood’s cancellation, actress Annabeth Gish has signed on for a Lifetime project based on the books of  best-selling crime writer Patricia Cornwell.
Gish, shown here with her son at a celebrity carnival in LA to benefit the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, will play Special Agent Delma Sykes of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, who assists Massachusetts investigator Win Garano as he tries to solve  a cold case.
The films, based on the books At Risk and The Front, also star Andie MacDowell (Sex, Lies and Videotape), Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me), Diahann Carroll (Grey’s Anatomy) and Ashley Williams (Saving Grace). Lifetime has yet …read more

Get ready to see a whole lot more of Latina actress Kate del Castillo, who plays Weeds crime boss Pilar Zuazo, the Mexican beauty who last week crashed the party of Nancy and Esteban’s relationship. She just signed on as a spokeswoman for L’Oreal Paris beauty products in North America.
Del Castillo’s first appearances for L’Oreal will be this fall in print and TV ads in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean for Excellence haircolor. She recently shot the commercial spots in L.A. and in Paris.
Already a huge telenovela star in Mexico, del Castillo said in a statement that “it …read more

That Lisa Rinna sure is wacky. She did TV Guide’s red carpet interviews at the Golden Globes, which sometimes felt more like awkard run-ins with the neighbors at  Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf than a masterpiece of entertainment journalism.
For instance, when Weeds’ Kevin Nealon, Justin Kirk and Elizabeth Perkins arrived, Lisa was all over them with the news that the studio that produces Weeds, Lionsgate, had just bought TV Guide. It was like she wanted to know if there would be better snacks in the break room with the new owners:

And when Lisa got David Duchovny in her sights, you …read more