Star turn: Cameron DiazHats off to Cameron Diaz, who was out till well after 4am on the morning of the Oscars at the party Harvey Weinstein threw at Soho House's sexy digs on Sunset Boulevard.
She had about four hours sleep before she had to try on a rack of gowns for the Academy Awards. Incredibly, she was full of vim when she stopped to say 'Hi' to me on the Oscar red carpet.
She did her little gig on stage for the awards show.
Party hard: Cameron's Oscar glamourThen she changed into another frock - a metallic number created by Victoria Beckham - for the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, played the room for a while, before high-tailing it over to Madonna's after-after-after bash, where she drank vintage Champagne and had a puff from one of Leonardo DiCaprio's cigars.
Maybe it was practice for the world tour she's about to begin with Tom Cruise for the Fox romcom they've got coming out called Knight And Day.
Following that she will be joining Seth Rogan and Christoph Waltz on The Green Hornet.
Later in the year, Cameron goes before the cameras to shoot the movie Bad Teacher opposite her former beau Justin Timberlake.
She plays a teacher who creates havoc in the staff room when she tries to become romantically involved with a colleague played by Timberlake.
Cameron and her beau split three years ago after four years together. Timberlake is now dating actress Jessica Biel.
Cameron, 37, is a girl who has always known how to have fun but not in a self-destructive kind of way.
She once told me that sometimes she can stay home like a nun, not going out. But during Oscar week she said it's like the school Prom.
'It's party time and time for fun. People don't realise that this is a company town and people are in bed by ten at night ,or earlier, because they have to be up at five in the morning to go on set and you can't go on set if you've been up half the night'.
Cameron's a disciplined girl which is why she keeps getting A-list movies... but there will be no more partying now the Oscars are over.
Kate Winslet looked sensational in her YSL gown, with her blonde hair styled like a Forties star.
She did her Oscars duties and scooted right back to New York to prepare for shooting the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce, with director Todd Haynes and actors Guy Pearce and Evan Rachel Wood.
Hollywood glamour: Kate Winslet had her hair styled like a Forties starCameras roll next week. Meanwhile, last night Oscar winner Kate (who took away a statuette for The Reader last year) was checking out another script for a possible project later in the year.
'It's about time I got back to work,' she told me.
Elton John and David Furnish are among several producers behind Geoffrey Nauffts' new play 'next fall', which just opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway.
The drama is about love, family and death, with a cast of six who meet in a hospital as Patrick Heusinger's Luke fights for life after being struck by a vehicle in New York.
Initially, I was irritated by the story's TV sitcom feel, but then I realised that was partly because of the shrillness of one of the main performances and the annoying habit some New York actors have of over-emphasising everything.
After 20 minutes I was wrapped up in the story. I connected with it as a father; others in the audience had a different take, and that's the beauty of Nauffts' play - it will affect audiences every which way.
There's talk of 'next fall' moving to London; and talk of Nauffts Anglicising it.
My view is that the piece should stay as it is, but use British actors employing American accents, who are less likely to overplay it.
Oh, and it needs to go to a small house - somewhere intimate, like the Duchess or one of the spaces at Trafalgar Studios.
Elementary, my dear Robert Robert Downey JR told me he had fun working with Jude Law on Sherlock Holmes.
'We all still like each other, which is a good thing,' said the actor (pictured with his wife Susan).
He added there will be a Sherlock Holmes 2, possibly ready to shoot late this year or next year, depending on the schedules of the two leads and director Guy Ritchie.
'Jude and I had good on-screen chemistry and you can't fake that,' Downey Jr told me.
Jude, by the way, is due in New York to take part in Saturday Night Live tomorrow.
He has a new movie called Repo Man coming out here soon. Sienna Miller's travelling with him and she has some meetings regarding future projects while she's in New York.
Kathryn Bigelow, fresh from winning the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for The Hurt Locker, is lining up her next project - a drama for HBO.
Ms Bigelow will use a script by John Logan, whose play Red (which was at the Donmar) just started previews on Broadway, with the brilliant London cast of Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne being directed by Michael Grandage.
Later, Bigelow and her Oscar-winning screen-writer Mark Boal will team up again to shoot a movie in South America about the drug trade.
In the groove: Abbie CornishAbbie loves her Madge
Abbie Cornish , one of the stars of Madonna's new movie, has been sticking up for the singer, who's taken a lot of stick in the past for her forays into the world of film.
Abbie (as this column was first to reveal) will appear, along with Vera Farmiga, in a film based on the Edward VIII abdication crisis which Madonna will direct on locations in and around London in June, with some shooting in the South of France and New York.
'Madonna's a strong, independent woman who doesn't need a man to define her - and that's admirable,' Abbie told me when we met in the white-hot crush that was the Vanity Fair Oscar Party.
The actress was impressed with Madonna's detailed knowledge of the constitutional ramifications of the abdication.
'She's studied every aspect of what happened with Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII,' Abbie told me at the Sunset Tower Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, which had been commandeered for the night by the New York-based magazine. 'It's a fascinating insight into class and romance.
'Madonna's created a contemporary woman - who I will play - called Wally, who is fascinated by what happened to Mrs Simpson, and in a way her story mirrors certain aspects of what happened decades before.'
The film is called W.E. and Ms Farmiga will portray Mrs Simpson. Madonna will now focus on who will play the three main male roles: Edward VIII; Wally's wet husband; and Wally's lover, a Russian security guard.
Early drafts of the screenplay, written by Madonna and Alek Keshishian, were so bad one agent told me reading it made him 'lose the will to live'.
But Madonna and Keshishian have worked on it relentlessly and it now seems to be finding favour with some thespians.
I'm told that, out of politeness, a copy will be sent to Buckingham Palace in the summer for officials to have a look at, as it might help the film-makers with access to certain locations. Wonders never cease.
When I first started writing about this movie last year, I had it listed in my 'could be torture' file, but now I've shifted it to my 'could actually be fun' list. We'll see.
Taken for granted? Meryl Streep Meryl Streep swept out of the Board of Governors' Ball, saying she won't be back next year.
That wasn't out of a fit of pique, but simply because she has no movie due to be released this year that would qualify her for a spot as a nominee at the 83rd Academy Awards.
'I can watch it in my pyjamas,' the actress joked, as she was about to take the escalator down from the Kodak Centre Ballroom, which had been beautifully decorated for the Governors' Ball.
This year, Meryl lost out to Sandra Bullock and many are still debating whether she was robbed or not. Because she has been nominated 16 times, many voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences assume she has won that many times. I'm only half kidding.
As I walked around the Governors' Ball - and as they dined on tempura shrimp, mini-Kobe cheeseburgers, organic chicken pot pie and smoked salmon and caviar on Oscar-shaped crackers - I asked a dozen members when they thought was the last time Meryl had won an Academy Award.
The majority thought she'd taken home a golden statuette in the past five years. When I told them she last won nearly three decades ago - for Sophie's Choice - they were shocked and more than a tad embarrassed that they'd taken her for granted for so long.
Anyway, as I mentioned here back in January, Russell Brand wants Meryl to play the John Gielgud part of the butler in a re-make of the Dudley Moore comedy Arthur.
Meryl's people know about the film and like the idea, but the actress hasn't read the script yet and won't until after she has had a long break away from awards ceremonies and film sets.
I think she and Brand will make comedy magic if the screenplay is as sharp as
Brand tells me it is.
It's a tight squeeze for Posh, Sandra and co...
Victoria Beckham told me she's working closely with Mamma Mia! producer Judy Craymer on the Spice Girls musical Viva Forever.
Mrs Beckham said she loves going to musicals and will catch up with Andrew Lloyd Webber's new show Love Never Dies when she can.
There was party gridlock of such mammoth proportions at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party that I found myself closer-than-this as I had my brief chat with Ms Beckham who, in any case, was already well partied out.
Natalie Portman and some bloke were squeezing behind me; in front, I said 'H.i!' to Will.i.am ,Taboo & Apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas (they were also on the same flight to New York, where they did an industrial concert Wednesday night in Times Square for Samsung's new 3D TV sets); Jodie Foster was gawking at Olympic star Shaun White; and everyone was staring at Sandra Bullock as she tried to explain the rules of American football to me.
I've watched countless matches over the years, but it wasn't until I saw Bullock's movie The Blind Side (she won the Best Actress Oscar for it) that I actually understood the game, although it's also a moving tale about family.
Life in film: Dustin Hoffman At last, Dustin graduates from star to director
He's spent lifetime in front of the camera, but Dustin Hoffman is going behind it for the first time.
The Oscar-winning star is in the final stages of negotiations to direct his first film, featuring Maggie Smith, Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay - actors who know a thing or two themselves about being on a movie set.
Hoffman was in Los Angeles over the Oscar weekend at the opulent West Hollywood branch of Soho House, thrashing out last-minute details of a deal to direct Quartet, set in a retirement home for opera singers in the Home Counties.
The movie's based on a 1999 stage comedy by Ronald Harwood. The writer, who won an Oscar for Roman Polanski's The Pianist, is adapting his play for the big screen.
Hoffman has been acting in movies for more than 40 years and, although he has not directed before, he has familiarised himself with all aspects of film-making and has learnt at the altar of some of the greatest directors of all time, including Mike Nichols, who directed him in his first hit The Graduate, John Schlesinger, who made the fabled Midnight Cowboy, and Robert Benton, who directed Kramer vs Kramer, which won Hoffman his first Oscar.
Along the way, in no particular order, came Straw Dogs, Lenny, Tootsie, All The President's Men, Papillon, Little Big Man, Marathon Man and Rain Man.
More importantly, he learnt what not to do when he found himself on less successful projects, such as Ishtar, the joke-free comedy he made with Warren Beatty.
Filming on that stinker went on for so long he was able to purchase a mansion in Kensington with the pay cheque (he jokingly refers to it as the house that Ishtar built).
Hoffman, 72, has always wanted to direct. His career began on the American stage, and he is passionate about the theatre and the craft of acting.
He's close to concluding arrangements with Finola Dwyer, who with Amanda Posey produced the Oscar-nominated An Education. It won the Spirit Award last Friday for best foreign film.
Quartet will also have the backing of BBC Films and, with the added pulling power of Hoffman and Dwyer, should attract an A-list team of technicians. Filming is due to begin later in the year.
source: dailymail
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