[[CANDIDS]] Selma meets with Quinn Spilsbury

[[ARTICLES]] US Kath & Kim star Selma Blair blasts critics

By Peta Hellard July 02, 2008 07:59am

Look at moi ploise ... US Kath & Kim star Selma Blair / AP

HOLLYWOOD star Selma Blair has revealed she is shocked by an Australian-led blogger backlash about her US version of Kath & Kim.

Her comments came as US network NBC extended its order of its version of the show from six episodes to 13.

The Hellboy star, who will play Kim opposite Saturday Night Live comedian Molly Shannon, said she was surprised at criticism by fans of the show.

"Some people are really protective and horrified that we're doing it in the United States," Blair said.

"It's a case of, 'How could you? Oh my god, you might ruin it'. But what's to ruin? You're still going to have your great show in Australia - we're just paying homage to it. Nothing takes away from the original."

Blair, 36, revealed the US version, which was originally set in Phoenix, Arizona, was now set in the sprawling suburbs of Florida.

"We're middle-class, celebrity-obsessed, tabloid-crazy and kind of superficial," she said. "We think we are so fabulous and we're not really, at all.

"My mum Kath (played by Shannon) is wonderful and perky and positive and I'm a complete downer."

Like the Aussie series, Kim moves in with her mum after separating from her husband.

"I'm a pretty juvenile character - I'm in my mid-to-late 20s, but I dress like I'm 13," she said.

"I think I'm a trophy wife but my husband works at (electronics chain) Best Buy. I'm a bit delusional."

Blair revealed she gained 9kg to take on the role played by actor-writer Gina Riley, whose character loves tacky fashion.

"I was never going to let myself get, like, very big, but it was important to let myself not have any bones showing because it was a very Midwestern, middle-America diet and the girl's always eating," Blair said.

"The joke is I wear the same clothes from when I was 13 and when I sit down there will be a big roll over my shorts and I call myself the hottest thing.

"There will definitely be the appearance of a thong or two.

"She's always on the couch eating Doritos so I did that for a long time and I put on 20 pounds."

[[NEWS]] US network orders more Kath & Kim

American television network NBC has ordered seven more episodes of Logie Award winning Australian series Kath & Kim.

It brings the total order for the hit series to 13 half-hour episodes.

The pick-up comes shortly after the comedy - starring Molly Shannon and Selma Blair in the US version - shot the first episode of its six-episode order.

The show is scheduled to go back into production next month on the remaining segments.

Kath & Kim focuses on the dysfunctional relationship between Kath - played by Shannon - and her daughter Kim, who is played by Blair.

It will premiere in the US on October 9, in the Thursday night slot following another show adapted from a foreign version, The Office.

The hit Australian version was created by and stars Jane Turner and Gina Riley.

[[FILMS]] The Pocker House (Video)

THE POKER HOUSE at LA FILM FEST 2008 presented by LA TIMES

[[APARICIONES PUBLICAS-MEDIA]] Hellboy II The Golden Army Premiere Red Carpet arrivals

• Video de como le sacan fotos
  

[[LIFE]] About Selma Blair

Selma Blair at the Pretty Persuasion at the ArcLight Cinerama Dome. (Photo: Frazer Harriso / Getty Images)

In 2002, Vanity Fair magazine anointed Selma Blair as one of Hollywood’s next wave of stars, an honor bestowed to the acting elite. Fearless and versatile throughout her career when it came to choosing her film projects, she played everything from a ditzy prep school student to a big-breasted stripper. Blair even made an icy law student seem likeable in the comedy “Legally Blonde” (2001), the film in which audiences first took notice of her. Seven years after her blockbuster debut, she still had everyone laughing in “Kath and Kim” (NBC, 2008- ), a remake of a popular Australian sitcom, where she co-starred with TV funny gal Molly Shannon and continued to enthrall fans with her quirky beauty and comedic gifts.

Born Selma Blair Beitner on June 23, 1972 in Southfield, MI, the actress was the youngest of four girls. Her parents, Elliot and Molly Ann Beitner, divorced when she was 23; after which, she legally dropped her father’s name. “I have nothing to do with my father,” she said. “He is out of my life.” Her mother introduced her daughters as “the brain, the athlete, the klutz… and then there was Selma – the manic-depressive.” Blair said she really was not that troubled, although her mom gave her a necklace with a smile on one side and a frown on the other to reflect her quick-changing moods. She attended a Jewish day school and then Cranbrook Kingswood school in Bloomfield Hills, MI before attending Kalamazoo College her freshman year, where she acted in a play titled “The Little Theater of the Green Goose.”

Blair moved to New York City to pursue photography after graduating magna cum laude from University of Michigan in 1994 with a degree in photography and a minor in English, but she soon took interest in a different field – acting. Her training at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting and Column Theater helped her land a few small roles in the early 1990s. She auditioned for the title role in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (WB, 1997-2007; UPN, 2001-03) in 1997, but lost out to her future co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar. That same year, she had an uncredited role in “Scream 2” as Gellar’s character’s friend. Unfortunately, she did not receive any screen time, as it was merely her voice used during a phone call scene.

In what was regarded as her breakout role, the actress appeared in the 1999 film “Cruel Intentions,” based on the classic novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the Stephen Frears-directed “Dangerous Liaisons” (1988). The movie starred Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Philippe and Gellar, whom Blair shared a passionate onscreen lip lock with. The scene where Gellar’s mean queen taught Blair’s naïve Cecile how to French kiss won the MTV Movie Award for “Best Kiss.” The wheels started turning faster for the star when she was cast as Zoe Bean in the twenty-something TV series “Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane” (WB, 1999-2000). The show, unfortunately, failed to connect with the audience and only lasted two seasons.

Blair formed a close friendship with her “Cruel” costar Witherspoon. They worked together again in the hilarious “Legally Blonde,” playing law school archrivals. Their brunette vs. blonde clash onscreen was comical and entertaining in a Betty vs. Veronica kind of vein. "She's a little wacky," Witherspoon said of her raven-haired co-star. "But wacky in that great way, (like) a Mary Tyler Moore sort of personality. She’s just one of the great comediennes of her generation.” Blair continued starring in more girl-power movies in the early millennium, acting alongside Cameron Diaz and Christina Applegate in the sometimes vulgar comedy “The Sweetest Thing” (2002), and playing a preppie girl about to get married in “A Guy Thing” (2003).

Even though Blair could have taken on strictly mainstream projects and been successful, she also chose cutting edge roles in critically praised independent films, such as “Kill Me Later” (2001) with Max Beesley. She took the offbeat step further in the controversial “Storytelling” (2001) from director Todd Solondz, where her troubled character was described in the movie as “a spoiled, suburban white girl with a Benetton complex.” The movie’s first scene took off with a bang, with Blair having raunchy sex with her onscreen boyfriend who suffers from cerebral palsy.

By the mid-2000s, Blair was one of the busiest and most in-demand actresses in Hollywood. She took on the role of Liz Sherman in Guillermo del Toro’s “Hellboy” (2004). She reprised the role four years later in “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (2008), also directed by del Toro. Yet playing a girl with pyrokinetic powers in the “Hellboy” films did not compare to her role in “A Dirty Shame” (2004). In the John Waters’ comedy, the actress wore humongous prosthetic breasts to play stripper, Caprice Stickles.

Despite acting alongside a who’s-who of Hollywood leading men – from Topher Grace in “In Good Company” (2004) to Edward Burns in “Purple Violets” (2007) to Greg Kinnear in “Feast of Love” (2007) – Blair’s personal life was never a hot topic in tabloids, compared to other actresses of her time. She married actor and musician Ahmet Zappa, the son of the late singer-songwriter Frank Zappa, in January 2004, but they divorced in 2006. However, Blair’s fashion forward style was closely followed, not only by Hollywood cameras, but also by young fashionistas who looked up to her as one of its hipster princesses. Experimenting with different looks in short periods of time, she sported everything from a Mohawk, a pixie cut and a Louise Brooksesque bob, stating that she had “no fears when it comes to my hair and clothes.”

Aside from the short-lived “Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane” and a 2002 holiday-themed episode of “Friends” (NBC, 1994-2004), Blair’s big screen work had filled up the majority of her resume. However some of the better parts – particularly for actresses – were becoming increasingly found on television by the turn of the millennium. So like many of her fellow film “It” girls, Blair turned her attention back to the small screen, with “Kath and Kim,” co-starring with the hilarious Molly Shannon. In the series based on an Australian TV show of the same name, the twosome recreated the dysfunctional duo of a foxy 40-something mother (Shannon) and her childish and celebrity-obsessed daughter (Blair). Interestingly enough, Shannon was only eight years older than her onscreen daughter. Critics had their knives sharpened for any successful television overseas import that has been Americanized, but it was one of the more hotly anticipated series of the fall 2008 season.

[[HELLBOY]] Interview to the game Hellboy Science of Evil

Selma Blair who interpreted Liz Sherman on both Hellboy movies gives an exclusive interview to the game Hellboy Science of Evil of PSP.

Selma Blair, la atriz que interpretó a Liz Sherman

[[PHOTOSHOOTS]] No Hair or Clothing Fears

[[ARTICLES]] Tank Girl Makes Her Directorial Debut With Gritty Life Story

TANK GIRL star LORI PETTY has turned her tough Iowa upbringing into a new movie, and cast SELMA BLAIR as her mother.

Petty wrote and directed The Poker House, staging a lengthy casting call to find the newcomer who would play her as a child, Jennifer Lawrence - and called on the Hellboy star to play her mum.

Perry's autobiographical directorial debut, about her poverty-stricken teenage years, will premiere at the upcoming Los Angeles Film Festival.

A film insider says, "It's a ravishing portrait of poor, small town life in Iowa, circa 1976 - Marvin Gaye, seedy bars, and the ever present allure of illicit activities and substances."

Blair plays a mum of three daughters in the film. Her eldest, Agnes, is inspired by Lori herself.

The film includes Petty's "pimp father figure, and a memorable assortment of dangerous yet colourful gamblers, thieves and johns."

Petty says, "This is a movie that had to be made, so it showed up uninvited as my adolescence. The movie is the eldest daughter, me, realising between a heartbeat, that things may happen to you, but they don't happen to you forever unless you let them."

[[ARTICLES]] Has She or Hasn’t She – Selma Blair and Botox

Thirty-five year old actress, Selma Blair doesn’t feel she is at that age yet where she can justify getting Botox for wrinkles. According to an in-depth interview published online, Blair said, “I wanted to get Botox once to make me feel younger. But I don’t really have to justify it yet.”

The star of the Hellboy movies and The Fog also said that she was not ruling out having plastic surgery later on, but it wasn’t something she has given much thought to.

Blair also revealed that as she gets older she prefers the less is more application of makeup as she does not want “to feel like my face is cracking from too much foundation”.

[[PHOTOCALLS]] Kath and Kim

[[TV APARENCES]] Selma Blair on Regis and Kelly (Video)

[[PROJECTS]] For YouTube "The Big Empty"

Esta muy bueno, es un corto de un poco más de 20 minutos, es fantasioso, donde dentro del utero del personaje de Selma Blair, hay un propio ecosistema formado.
Lo tenes que ver!!

• Video
  

[[ARTICLES]] Selma no necesita Botox

Selma Blair isn’t wrinkled enough for Botox or plastic surgery, she says

by Colin Stewart

Photo: Actress Selma Blair, age 35, visits the NBC Universal Experience at Rockefeller Center on May 12, 2008. (AP Photo)

Survey: Does anyone disagree with Selma Blair and think she already needs cosmetic work?

Actress Selma Blair tells In Style magazine in its June edition that she’s not yet ready for Botox or plastic surgery, but she doesn’t reject them.

“I wanted to get Botox once to make me feel younger. But I don’t really have [enough wrinkles] to justify it yet. As for going under the knife, I can’t say I wouldn’t, but I haven’t thought too much about it,” she said.

She co-stars in the movie Hell Boy II: The Golden Army, scheduled to open locally next month.

Blair said she isn’t interested in breast implants. “I wore huge prosthetic boobs for a John Waters movie. They were glued on every day by a really handsome guy, but ripping them off every night was definitely outside my realm of comfort. After those bosoms, I didn’t mind being flat-chested anymore!” she said.

As for skin care and cosmetics, she said, “I go to a spa in L.A. called Kinara for its Skin Care Boot Camp. You go once a week for 12 sessions and they’ll look at your skin and tell you how to get it in better condition. They really helped me a lot. I also stay out of the sun.

“Egyptian Magic cream is my saving grace for everything. It works for my friend’s baby’s bottom, and I can also use it instead of Chapstick.”

Survey: Does anyone disagree with Selma Blair and think she already needs cosmetic work?

Photo: Actress Selma Blair, age 32, at the nominations for the 20th IFP Independent Spirit Awards Nov. 30, 2004, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo)

Photos: Left: Selma Blair in 2002, age 29, at Oscar party. Right: In January 2008, age 35, at Chanel “A Night of Diamonds” dinner in New York. (AP Photos)

Does Selma Blair already need cosmetic work?

• I agree with her: She doesn’t need it yet.
  10149% of all votes
• I disagree: She needs it.
  105% of all votes
• She should always refrain from Botox and plastic surgery.
  3818% of all votes
• What a gorgeous person. Stay natural!¹
  5728% of all votes

Total Votes: 206 Started: June 2, 2008

[[MEDIA-VIDEO]] Trailer: 'The Poker House'

[[CANDIDS-MEDIA]] Selma in NY sacandose fotos con la gente (Video)

[[CANDIDS]] Selma picks up a coffee with a friend in LA

[[INTERVIEWS]] UP CLOSE WITH SELMA BLAIR

The 'Hellboy II' hottie talks about her flame-throwing role in the sequel, shacking up with the Demon of the Apocalypse and the rumors she's playing Neil Gaiman's Death!

By Andy Serwin

WIZARD: Four years have gone by since the first movie; did you think you'd get to play the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman again?
BLAIR: I hoped that I would. I kind of thought that it was never going to happen, but ["Hellboy" and "Hellboy II" director] Guillermo del Toro just didn't give up. When he gave me a call at 11 o'clock one night to tell me that they had the financing, I was really relieved. It was something that I had been waiting and hoping for and this does feel like we're back with family even though it's a whole new amazing experience. The first one was such an introduction to Hellboy that I always thought the meat would be in the second and third, at least for Liz, because in the first one she was afraid to take a step. She was a zombie, not wanting to own up to her power and not having the memory of what she'd created in her life. So I was really eager to come and play Liz with a little more vibrancy.

How much has she changed since the first movie?
I thought I would get here and already know this girl, but I realized that I don't know her at all because I don't know her as a woman. It seems like such a straightforward role, but it's really been a challenge for me not to suck the energy out of Liz because that's kind of how I played her in the first one, like she was in a vacuum.

Was the haircut something that Guillermo suggested, or something that you came up with together?
It was together. My hair, I basically went nuts and shaved my head. There was actually a girl who wanted my hair and I'm a giver. So I gave her my hair. [Laughs] I did that to make a wig for a child, but then I just made it a fashion thing that I had this strangely shaped head. But I thought, "Oh, God, Guillermo is going to kill me." But he saw the short hair and I think he really wanted it. I think that it's a little anime inspired.

How has Liz's relationship with Hellboy developed since the first movie?
Well, it's worked out about as much as my marriage in real life. [Laughs] [EDITOR'S NOTE: Blair divorced musician Ahmet Zappa in 2006.] That's terrible to say. We're very good friends. It's difficult living with someone, especially a guy that takes up as much room as Hellboy, with as many cats as Hellboy has. So we are very happy together, but there's trouble with spending so much time with someone that you love after you're used to being alone and having your way. Between my fire and his little-boy sloppy behavior, we're a mess—a lovable mess.

You're packing heat in addition to your fire powers this time around; why are you carrying a gun?
Talk to Guillermo about that. It's really embarrassing too. I wouldn't pull this out if it weren't completely rubber, but it's really embarrassing. I spend so much time in this movie holding this gun up and I'm like to Doug [Jones, aka Abe Sapien] next to me, "Jesus Christ, don't I have fire for this?"

You did the voice of Liz in the animated movies; has there been talk of any more of those?
I know that one was nominated for an Emmy, and I'm glad that that one person who nominated it bought it because that's about the only copy that I know of. I don't know if anymore are going to happen, but one of them was really beautiful. [Laughs].

Has the cast dynamic changed with the addition of psychic Johann Kraus?
I had just one scene with Abe Sapian that was really touching in the first one. That was actually really my only scene where I felt like a person communicating with someone, and in this one, he's my buddy and we're together all the time. So I feel closest to Doug in this and always Ron [Perlman, aka Hellboy]. I live next to Ron in real life, so he's just someone that I'm really close to and have kept in touch with. Then John Alexander and James [Dodd], the couple of people that play Johann, I think the more the merrier—the more people that can suffer in their costumes and I can make fun of them because I don't have one. I bedevil them. It's awful. They're sweating and dying and can't breathe and I'm like, "Oh, my God, this cotton tank top is just really too much. I don't know how you guys do it.''

Del Toro is also producing the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Death: The High Cost of Living. That seems right up your alley. Are you jockeying for that?
I've wanted to play Death for a long time. On the set of the first ["Hellboy"], people would see me and say, "You have to play Death. Oh my God, you have to do it." I didn't know he was doing "Death" at the time. He knew for sure that he'd be teaming up with Neil on that and he said, "Yeah, you'd be good for Death." Then it's been crickets. I think he definitely has his eye on someone, and I would know if it were me and it's not me. [Neil and I are] good friends, and that still didn't get me the job. [Laughs]

[[ARTICLES]] Role Player (Vogue Men's)

Selma Blair has shone in dozens of films, inhabiting a gamut of characters from the frothy to the seedy. Now she's not only a leading lady — she's got her own action figure. By Michael Walker

Selma Blair has Charlotte Rampling's eyes, Dorothy Parker's precision-strike wit, and sufficient acting chops to blow better-known actresses off the screen with a toss of her bangs. Having shone in all manner of movies, from lightweight fare like Legally Blonde, The Sweetest Thing, and Cruel Intentions (in which she famously twisted tongues with Sarah Michelle Gellar) to darker indie films like Kill Me Later and Todd Solondz's Storytelling, the 36-year-old native of the Detroit suburbs has lately been trading up her character-actress cred for a fatter slice of the cultural pie.

"Part of me would love to have been a leading lady, because there's a lot of glamour that goes with that, and a lot of applause," she says, nursing a coffee in a West Hollywood patisserie. "But I've been very blessed. I'm not one of these girls who has to fit into a mold. I'm a working actress able to make choices based on characters rather than what I 'should' do for my career."

Blair, the youngest of four overachieving sisters, was born in Southfield, Michigan. "I was always kind of the storyteller," she recalls. "I remember being in the schoolyard when I was six, and I'd make up stories about how there was a huge carnival behind my house and then get in trouble because everyone wanted to come to see it. I had to become a recluse at a very young age so my story wouldn't be found out." After she graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in photography and a minor in English ("I was mostly writing about despair, grief, loneliness...the usual William Styron type of stuff," Blair laughs), a stint at the Stella Adler Studio in New York City nudged her into acting.

These days she does dark, light, and pretty much everything in between. She portrays a young woman avenging her rape and torture in the just-released thriller WAZ; in the upcoming The Poker House, she plays a prostitute who's the ultimate bad example for her 14-year-old daughter. In the franchise-building department, look for Blair to reprise her role as Liz Sherman, the pyrokinetic heroine of Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II. ("I have my own action figure," she says proudly.) With Molly Shannon, she'll star in the upcoming NBC comedy series Kath & Kim, based on the hit Australian television show about a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship. (For the record, Blair adores her real mother back in Ann Arbor, with whom she corresponds by handwritten notes.)

Divorced in 2006 after two years of marriage to Ahmet Zappa — "a lovely man" whose ring she still wears — Blair cops to bouts of melancholy despite the wind filling her sails as never before. A voracious reader, she finds comfort in books like Elliot Perlman's novel Seven Types of Ambiguity, in doting on her one-eyed Jack Russell mutt, Wink (adopted from a Los Angeles animal shelter), and in the prospect that her career may finally reach critical mass.

"I think it's been confusing for people because I haven't had a linear career," Blair says. "People who watch WAZ aren't going to see Legally Blonde. So even though I've done 27 movies, people think I've probably only done three. I'll always be indebted to Guillermo for giving me my shot at being a leading lady. It's such an unlikely leading lady, so maybe it makes sense that an unlikely leading lady would play it."