Syndicated Columns George Carlin  •  Robert De Niro  •  George Foreman  •  Raul Julia  •  Gary Oldman  •  John Ritter TV Guide Reviews Die Another Day  •  Shrek  •  Star Trek: Nemesis  •  Children of the Century  •  Under the Sand  •  X2  •  A Mess of Other Stuff Shotgun Messiah  •  Sample Gist TV Online capsules  •  Jodie Foster  •  Barnes & Noble Online review: 2001: A Space Odyssey Newspaper Enterprise Association GARY OLDMAN PLAYS ANOTHER IN A SERIES OF 'CREEPS' IN HIS LATEST FILM, ROMEO IS BLEEDING BYLINE: FRANK LOVECE, NEA He's such a nice, polite boy, this Gary Oldman, looking like every mother's dream in a neat black turtleneck, a herringbone suit and glasses. And there he is on the screen in the black-comic thriller Romeo Is Bleeding, playing a cop so corrupt and adulterous, the only way you could stop his adultery would be to bribe him. "Yeah, I give good creep," Oldman agreed wryly. "And proud of it." He should be: Aside from his police Detective Jack Grimaldi in Romeo, Oldman has played a self-destructive punk rocker in Sid and Nancy (1986), Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1991) and the bloodsucking count in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). What's next? "I'm looking for a comedy," he says. Very funny. Also ironic, since Romeo Is Bleeding is at least somewhat a comedy itself. "It's a dark, very dark, comedy," Oldman allows, trying to get a handle on the odd film. "That is, it's a comedy of a sort. A comedy/thriller/romance," he tries again. Then he gives it up to chuckle. "It's something for all the family," he announces. "It's a situation tragedy. It's pastoral. It's comical." It is, in other words, as complex and contradictory as Oldman himself. A London-born actor, the working-class Oldman is at ease and thoroughly convincing playing Americans of all regions and accents. A meek-looking bloke in real life, he plays intensely deranged men. "I read about stuff sometimes, y'know: 'Gary Oldman — intense actor.' And 'Yeah, it's an intense part — let's get Gary Oldman.' Y'know," he says, laughing, "it's like, 'Who can we get for Lee Harvey Oswald?' I don't know what you'd call it — intensity, passion. All I know is, I put everything I have into it." — top — Newspaper Enterprise Association GEORGE CARLIN'S AN AGING BEATNIK, AND HE PLAYS ONE ON TV BYLINE: FRANK LOVECE, NEA For a comedian who first made his mark doing hippie schtick, George Carlin is an old-fashioned sentimentalist. How much so? For the Manhattan-bar locale of The George Carlin Show, he chose not a made-up name but the real one from a bar of his past. "The Moylan Tavern," Carlin, 56, remembered somberly. "It was where I saw Oswald shot. It was where I headed during the blackout. "The Moylan is where I came of age." Carlin — the grizzled stand-up star, the time-traveling Rufus of the Bill & Ted movies and Mr. Conductor on the PBS children's series Shining Time Station — seems much less the aging hippie than one would suspect from his act. Better to call him an aging beatnik, much like his character on the show. "The latter '70s and early '80s for me were periods of retreating and recovering from things like an IRS debt of $3 million, two heart attacks, a car accident, a career in a little bit of drift," he said. Family concerns are the reason for finally doing a sitcom after resisting for years. "I owe it to myself and my wife to try to hit a home run and give us real security," he said. — top — Newspaper Enterprise Association ACCLAIMED STAGE ACTOR FINDS FAME AS PATRIARCH OF ADDAMS FAMILY BYLINE: FRANK LOVECE, NEA He's creepy, but not particularly kooky or ooky. And while we perhaps might be speaking of Othello — one of the many Shakespearean characters Raul Julia has played to acclaim on the New York stage — we refer, of course, to Julia's inimitable Gomez Addams. After a broad, distinguished theater career and charismatic roles in many movies, Julia has found his biggest audience as patriarch of the dryly comic ghouls of Addams Family Values, the sequel to last year's hit, The Addams Family. Based, like the 1960s TV series, on the late Charles Addams's long-running cartoons for The New Yorker magazine, the film reunites Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci as members of the horrific but loving family. "Well, y'know," says Julia gamely, "each situation is interesting for its own sake. And as far as the Addams Family movies go, of course, I'm glad they're successful. It's a fun show, and I enjoy it very much. It's an excellent situation for having fun." Gomez, indeed, is a wonderfully hammy role, and Julia plays it with a remarkable combination of cartoonishness and class. "With Gomez, my director, Barry Sonnenfield, would usually say, 'Go all the way! You can't go far enough!' But," says Julia, smiling, recognizing his larger-than-life tendencies, "I don't agree with that. I can go far enough!" he jokes. "Luckily, with Gomez you can go further than with most [roles]." And Julia goes pretty far with his roles, whether as the chummy, gregarious drug-runner of Tequila Sunrise (1988), the coolly slick lawyer of Presumed Innocent (1990), or the tortured political prisoner Valentin in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985). Each has a palpable passion that seeps off the screen. In person, on the other hand, Julia seeps relaxation. Looking like any other pleasant, comfortable, 53-year-old family man — his large eyes cheery and soulful, his full head of hair a stew of black and gray — Julia is upbeat about the new film, but otherwise subdued. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where his father, a one-time engineer, opened a successful restaurant called The Chicken Inn, where, says Julia, he introduced pizza to the island. "He got the idea from traveling in New York when pizzas were just starting to be sold there, too, in the late '40s." Though his father passed away, the restaurant still exists, leased to different owners. Julia himself came to the land of pizza in 1967, after having graduated from the University of Puerto Rico and performing in many amateur productions — and at a club where he was seen by actor Orson Bean (now of CBS's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman), who urged him to try making it in New York. Julia wound up under the wing of the late Joseph Papp, director of the New York Shakespeare Festival, and began a long and fruitful stage career, including a quartet of Tony Award nominations. "I always wanted to be doing theater," Julia muses. "If a film came along and I auditioned for it and got it, then fine. But I would always come back to New York to do theater." It may be a while before that happens — he's currently in negotiations for four movie projects, including playing artist Diego Rivera in a planned Frida Kahlo biography, The Two Fridas, to be directed by Luis Valdez (La Bamba). In the meantime, Julia remains in New York, near his beloved theater, along with his wife of 17 years, former dancer Merel Poloway, and their sons, Raul Sigmund III and Benjamin Rafael. And as much as he can, he'll keep mixing his roles between the silly and the serious, as in art-house movies like Romero (1989) and The Penitant (1988). "I like entertainment just for the sake of it," Julia says. "But also I like seeing an audience leaving the theater with something more than just a bellyful of popcorn." — top — Newspaper Enterprise Association HEAVYWEIGHT WORK OF TV SITCOM LEAVES FOREMAN NEARLY PUNCH DRUNK BYLINE: FRANK LOVECE, NEA George Foreman used to be a boxer. Now he's a clown. Some would say that's been true a long time, even before his new ABC sitcom, George. Yet give the man credit: He was the heavyweight boxing champion of the world in 1973 and 1974, knocking out Joe Frazier, Joe Roman and Ken Norton. Then, after losing to Muhammad Ali in Kinshasa, Zaire, he went on to become a minister and youth counselor. That's plenty serious. Foreman himself is anything but. And when his 6-foot-plus, 272-pound frame fills the doorway, you find yourself thankful for that because. even at 44, he looks like he could beat up a bus. Hollywood, though, that's a different story. "The only thing glamorous you can get in Hollywood is a Sealy mattress!" he declares, half-joking. "I thought I was gonna run around and have fun with dark glasses and limousines. Well, the only thing I can look forward to is a nap! I didn't know this much work goes into it," he says of his sitcom. "Probably if I had, I wouldn't have been so enthusiastic to do it. I figured it'd be six weeks of this, then back into my boxing!" Leaving aside for the moment his contention to again become a contender, Foreman does get a workout both from his show and from critics, who suggest that as an actor, he's a pretty good boxer. "I read some of the articles and reviews, and I take 'em to my wife, and she says, 'Can you believe it? You're finally in a part of the paper that's not sports!' No matter what they write," he says, delighted, "it means a lot for a boxer to have someone say something other than 'George can't take a shot to the chin!"' George stars Foreman as retired boxer George Foster, who starts an after- school program for troubled inner-city kids. Sheryl Lee Ralph plays his wife, Maggie, succeeding Suzzanne Douglas, who had the role in the pilot. "I don't know what happened there, I really don't," Foreman says of the switch. "I don't know anything that I don't have to; the more you find out, the greater fears you have. . . . I did like the show the first way, but for some reason, they changed the wife — kinda like me!" he says, laughing. (Foreman has been married 10 years to his fifth wife, Mary, with whom he's had four of his nine children.) Foreman, in real life, is also involved in a youth center, though he swears that executive producers Norma Safford Vela, Steve Sauer and Tony Danza, an ex-middleweight boxer himself, did not base the series on his life. Even so, "Some of the things they come up with, it's like, how did they know that? I don't know how they could know." For example, "Something that happened with a kid in the youth center. He's about 12 years old, with big feet. So I bought a pair of shoes and acted like they were too tight for me, just to give to him" without hurting the boy's pride. "And when he put on the shoes, I said, 'Boy, you gonna be big!' And he said, yeah, his dad was 6-feet-8. He was always boastin' on his dad." Yet one day, the boy confessed he didn't know his father, that he'd been making up stories out of embarrassment. "And you know," Foreman marvels, "they wrote (an episode) similar to that without even talkin' to me about it. Don't know how, but the writers just pick up on things because I've never even told that story before to anybody in the media." That story has resonance for Foreman since he, too, essentially didn't know his father. Raised by his mother and grandmother in Houston, he was a self-described "mugger . . . a criminal." Then, in his teens, he saw football star and actor Jim Brown in a TV commercial for the Job Corps, a federal anti-poverty program begun by President Lyndon Johnson. "Jimmy Brown said, 'Are you looking for just one chance? Join the Job Corps.' And so I did," Foreman says. "Those commercials did it, got me outta that life. That's why today I believe that athletes are role models — more than role models. I'll always live a certain life because of what Jimmy Brown and the Job Corps did for me." Foreman went on to win a 1968 Olympic Gold Medal in boxing and to become world heavyweight champ. He later became a pastor in the nondenominational Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in hometown Houston and along the way, squeezed in a film role (as a factory worker in 1975's Let's Do It Again) and several TV appearances as himself. And he is grateful. "I keep thinking, even to this day," he says, the soul of seriousness, "that I'll wake up and find out that, ahhhh, it was all just a dream." — top — Newspaper Enterprise Association JOHN RITTER AGAIN IS AFIRE WITH COMEDY BYLINE: FRANK LOVECE, NEA For a guy who radiates humor like the sun radiates light, John Ritter seems oddly forlorn or maybe just a little tired today. "I'm major sad for Major Dad fans," he explains. That must be it. His new CBS sitcom, Hearts Afire, has taken over the Major Dad slot on Monday nights. "But Major Dad is still on the air," Ritter points out brightly, "on Fridays. Or if they can't wait till Friday," he adds with a suddenly pointed tone, "they can go to a recruiting station and salute Gerald McRaney's NRA poster." Ouch. Ritter, 44, may be kidding about Major Dad star McRaney (who indeed did a promo spot, though not a poster, for the National Rifle Association), but it's clear he has distaste for the military sitcom on which Dan Quayle was once a lionized guest. Yet ironically, Ritter's new TV character might applaud the vice president: Ritter plays John Hartman, chief of staff for a conservative Southern senator. The romantic comedy co-stars Markie Post (Night Court) as Georgie Ann Lahti, the senator's press secretary and a former firebrand journalist who is politically liberal. At first blush, "liberal loves conservative" seems a cliché. But since Hearts Afire is the brainchild of writer/producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who created Evening Shade and Designing Women, the characters are likely more than the sum of their politics. "Believe me," Ritter says, "Linda doesn't like stereotypes." He and Bloodworth-Thomason first came into contact seven years ago, he says, though they only actually met just recently. "I met Harry Thomason" — Bloodworth-Thomason's producer-director husband — "when I signed on with 20th Century Fox in 1985," Ritter recalls, referring to the production deal between the studio and his company, Adam Productions. "And my partner, Bob Myman, said these were people he would really like to get involved with. "But I never met Linda myself until I got involved with Hearts Afire. I find there's a sort of Southern formality to her that's very sweet; a kindness or politeness you don't normally find, very refined and genteel." Ritter, son of actress Dorothy Fay and famous western singer/actor Tex Ritter, broke into TV almost immediately after graduating from the University of Southern California. After a busy stretch of guest spots on everything from Mannix to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, including a recurring role as Rev. Fordwick on The Waltons, he achieved stardom as hapless Jack Tripper on the sitcom Three's Company (ABC, 1977-84). A much-lambasted example of what was then called "jiggle TV," the hit show nonetheless netted him an Emmy Award and two additional nominations. Ritter, a truly great physical comedian, remains unsung and underused compared to such illustrious predecessors as Harold Lloyd, Danny Kaye or Lucille Ball. Part of the reason may be that he swears he doesn't care. "I never feel frustrated," he declares. "I really feel fulfilled and very lucky. I know a lot of people like my work and a lot really don't give a hoot. "I am both so beaten up and bolstered up — I've gotten so many criticisms and accolades — that the fulfillment happens on the floor in front of the camera, not when the project comes out. Noises Off (1991), which I thought was a very classy movie, didn't do well at all, whereas Problem Child, which was — well, you know — made a lot of money. My father would make record after record, and he'd be so surprised at what would sell and what wouldn't." Like father, like son. Ritter, who lives in California with wife Nancy Morgan and children John, 12, Carly, 10, and Tyler, 7, may yet find the perfect vehicle for his talents. Who knows? It might even be 'Hearts Afire.' "The funniest physical thing I ever did was on this show," he asserts. "Markie and I are kissing." That doesn't exactly sound like Buster Keaton. "But it's not in a way you've ever seen before," Ritter explains. "It's like this long kiss and — I can't really describe it. You'd have to see it." As physical comedy goes, that's a good sign. — top — Newspaper Enterprise Association DE NIRO CASTS NON-ACTORS FOR HIS DIRECTING DEBUT BYLINE: FRANK LOVECE, NEA We talkin' ta him? We talkin' ta him? 'Cause there're four other people here.... Robert De Niro, the American acting legend, sits resignedly at a Manhattan hotel, enduring what's called "a roundtable." Seldom mentioned by the press, it's the journalistic equivalent of a sausage factory: Celebrities plugging a movie sweep into town; a few dozen journalists are shoveled in behind them; and the celebrities hop from table to table for about 20 minutes and five to nine writers apiece. It's a common method of getting broad publicity in the smallest amount of time, though readers end up with preprogrammed responses rather than an incisive, enlightening look at an artist's mind. We generally avoid them. But for De Niro, we'll make an exception. Dressed informally, even rumpled, in a black button-down casual shirt and a charcoal-brown wool blazer, he has his silvery brown-black hair pulled back into a bun. Affable but unsmiling, and much more articulate than in rare past interviews, he makes it clear he's just doing his job: promoting his directorial debut, A Bronx Tale, in which he also stars. "I've wanted to direct for a long time," says the 50-year-old De Niro in his soft, New York street-guy voice, "so I just figured I'd better do it now. I've always wanted to, but then I was doing so many other things, acting mainly. I'm very happy acting, but I said I do wanna direct. Ultimately, I would like to write and direct, which is a complete thing, a complete creation. But I said for now, I have to really, if something comes along, I gotta do it. And Chazz's thing came along, so I said I really have to do it, jump in and do it." "Chazz's thing" is actor-playwright Chazz Palminteri's one-man performance piece, A Bronx Tale, a vivid monolog about growing up in an Italian-American neighborhood in the 1950s. Palminteri says that as a child, he witnessed a murder, and from that purportedly real-life seed sprang a story of a youth torn between two role models: His honest, bus-driver father, Lorenzo (De Niro), or the local mob boss, Sonny (Palminteri), who runs the neighborhood like a benevolent despot. Two non-actors play the youth at ages 9 and 17: respectively, Francis Capra (no relation to director Frank Capra) and Lillo Brancato. Casting non-actors is risky enough for any director, let alone a first-timer, yet except for Joe Pesci in a cameo, De Niro had non-actors for virtually every role in the film. "I knew I had to use unknowns" for authenticity, De Niro says. "I told the casting director from the beginning that it's gonna be an unusual, not-the-normal situation ... basically I wanted to look for real people who are not geared even to wanting to be actors. This is the kinda [story] that really warrants that." As for whether these unknowns could pull it off for the camera, De Niro professes, "I wasn't worried about that. I knew that ... when I got all these kids together that they would all be from basically the same background, so they would become comfortable with each other. Same with the older guys, like in the crap game [scene], they kinda knew what to do." Indeed, at least one of that wiseguy bunch — with nicknames like Frankie Coffeecake and JoJo the Whale - was played by the real-life inspiration. "I cast Eddie Mush as himself," De Niro recounts, speaking about an oblivious, wiseguy hanger-on known for losing every bet he ever played. — top — Faces Rocks (December 1989) SHOTGUN MESSIAH — METAL'S SWEDE SALVATION By Frank Lovece Sweden. Land of snow. Of the midnight sun. Of ABBA, Ingmar Bergman and Blue Swede, whose "Hooked on a Feeling" gave us those immortal words, "Ooogah-chucka, ooogah-chucka, ooogah-ooogah-ooogah-chucka." There are no oooga-chuckas in Shotgun Messiah. The Swedish-cum-American metal quartet is more "Rrrrrreeeeeee-dadadadaddadada-whoooooooom." "We sound like what we sound like," helpfully explains drummer Stixx, formerly Stixx Galore, formerly Pekka Ollinen of Skövde, the Swedish version of Jersey. "But in Sweden, everybody wants you to sound like everybody else." "Euro-pop," agrees vocalist Zinny J. San in disgust, spitting out the word like a plug of diseased tobacco. "Or," interjects guitarist Harry K. Cody, "you had to sound like Dokken or [The Michael] Schenker [Group]. We were freaks — we were into Alice Cooper and KISS." "You can't even look this way," marvels Zinny, referring to the band's L.A. locks and rock'n'roll regalia. "Because then they think you can't play, or they say, 'Oh, it's a fashion show.' It's ridiculous," he sneers. "We've never seen a contradiction. It was never, for us, that if you're a serious musician you can't spray your hair." So spray they did, and maybe even mousse. And when the aerosol cleared away, what remained was a buzzsaw sound highlighted by explosive rhythm lines. Guitar World magazine's recent list of the six most promising new hard-rock guitarists made sure to include Shotgun Messiah's Harry K. Cody (whose middle initial stands for his civilian last name, Kemppainen). With songs like "Shout It Out," the first single, and tough, melodic tunes like "Bop City" and "Nowhere Fast," the band's self-titled American debut album should fine a niche somewhere, fast. The road to that niche started several thousands miles away, in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. There, Zinny, still known as Bo Stagman, sang for Easy Action. But, "I quit because they wanted to go more pop". He soon afterward found himself in New York, playing with a band called The Throbs, and then back in Sweden, to try to form his own group. The European rock press was following all his movements, and a magazine article about Zinny brought him to the attention of Stixx, Cody and bassist Tim Tim (Tim Sköld). The three of them plus a vocalist friend were already together as a band called Kingpin, but the lead singer wasn't cutting it and a replacement had to be found. That wasn't easy in Skövde, a military-industrial suburb of Stockholm best known for its Volvo factory. "Skövde is a very small town," Stixx explains. "There are five bands and everybody knows each other. Tim and Harry had been together since '83, '84 in Kingpin, when I was still in this small, shitty local band, and they just needed a drummer and asked me." In early 1987, the trio heard that Zinny was free, and a match seemed made in heaven, or at least as far north to it as most people want to get. With Zinny in place, the new quartet took off for America, which they quickly learned is the land of lawsuits. "There was a San Francisco band called The Kingpins," says Zinny. The told us, 'If you keep that name, there's gonna be a lawsuit'. So we wound up sitting around with a couple of beers, and a good friend was with us, and he just came up with it [the name]. It really doesn't mean anything," he concedes. "It's just a good, strong name". Ands along with it, they had a good, strong demo: a 1988 album, Welcome To Bop City, released on the Swedish label CMM. "We recorded the album in 1987 just to come here," says Stixx. It was begun with "another vocalist, but his voice just couldn't do what it needed to. We're still good friends," he says. Nonetheless, Zinny laid down new, improved vocals where necessary, and brought some of his own material in as well. The first album was principally written by Cody, but now the whole bunch of them are working out new songs. And, too, they're getting more and more acclimated to Los Angeles. Their English, learned in Sweden's top-notch public school system, is virtually accentless. If you didn't know they were Swedish, you'd swear the guys came from The Valley or San Berdoo. "L.A. is like one big vacation," Tim Tim enthuses. "Yeah," adds Zinny with a mile-wide smile, "after the first month, we were exhausted! Coming from Sweden, we didn't realize it was sunny every day!" Part of the exhaustion came from the fact that their first home here was a house where, they say, Guns'n'Roses had previously lived. "Everybody in Los Angeles knows it," swears Zinny. "They call it the Hell House!" Since then, for the sake of sleep, the four have divided into two nearby apartments. Now, with the "Shout It Out" video having been directed by rock-movie auteur Penelope Spheeris (director of the Decline Of Western Civilization rockumentaries), Shotgun Messiah seems on its way to stateside success. And more's the pity. Because staying in the U.S. and making loud music may leave these poor homesick Swedes — ahem — hard of herring.... — top — Sample GIST TV Online Capsules Sex & Mrs. X (2000) (Premiere) Monday, April 10 LIF, 9 to 11 p.m. A successful magazine journalist (Terminator 2's Linda Hamilton) is abandoned by her husband after 10 years of marriage. What to do? Send a cyborg assassin from the future to kill him!  No, wait ... this is Lifetime. That means she has to learn the art of seduction from a fabled French courtesan she's profiling, in order to empower herself with a sexual reawakening involving guys named Paolo. Jacqueline Bisset plays Madame Simone. (Made for cable) Rocky and Bullwinkle Marathon Saturday, July 1 TOON, 4 to 11 p.m. ET Hokey smoke, dahlinks! Ees moose and squirrel! The Cartoon Network pulls a rabbit out of its hat — this time for sure! — as it complements the movie The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle with "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle": those famously satirical, pun-filled segments of Jay Ward and Bill Scott's boomer-beloved toon series Rocky and His Friends (ABC, 1959-1961) and The Bullwinkle Show (NBC, 1961-1964). Included: "The Ruby Yacht" and "Wossamotta U.," plus segments of "Fractured Fairy Tales," "Peabody's Improbable History" and more. Always a Bridesmaid (2000) (Premiere) Tuesday, June 27 MAX, 6 to 7:45 p.m. ET This engaging essay by 30-year-old wedding videographer and documentary filmmaker Nina Davenport muses amusingly about the whys and wherefores of wanting to be married — but mostly, about the whys and wherefores of Nina's wanting to be married. Nina interviews friends, people at weddings, prospective clients and unmarried old-lady acquaintances. But her primary target is her commitment-shy boyfriend, Nick, a budding filmmaker five years her junior. It's all sweetly loopy and self-obsessed, and only borderline creepy when Nina interviews her ex-boyfriends and Nick's ex-girlfriend about why their relationships ended. Biography: "Life of Python" Sunday, April 9 A&E, 8 to 10 p.m. ET Sorry, sorry, no documentary here about Monty Python's Flying Circus, the outrageously funny and influential British comedy troupe. Sorry, no. Only Spam. Well, eggs, bacon and Spam. And Spam, eggs, bacon and Spam. And Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam. Dammit, do you see what they've done? Raised intellectual absurdity to a level even we stupid Americans find hilarious. Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, David Frost and others dissect John Cleese, Michael Palin, host Eric Idle and the other Pythons like a crunchy frog. Friends: "The One That Could've Been" Thursday, February 17 NBC, 8 to 9 p.m. ET "For of all the words of tongue or pen / The funniest are these: 'It might have been!'" OK, so maybe that's not what John Greenleaf Whittier actually wrote. But then, America's Quaker Poet didn't have must-see TV. Otherwise, he may very well have wondered what would've happened if Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) had married Barry, or Joey (Matt LeBlanc) had stayed a soap star, or Ross (David Schwimmer) were still with his lesbian wife Carol (Jane Sibbett). Or maybe we're thinking of John Greenleaf Wittier? — top — Video Magazine [now Sound & Vision], May 1992 Jodie Foster Comes of Age By Frank Lovece Sitting and speaking with Jodie Foster, director-star of Little Man Tate, you get the feeling she takes for granted being the smartest person in a room. And she's usually right. Foster earned a literature degree, with honors, at Yale, and was valedictorian at the Lycee Francais prep school in Los Angeles — where from age 9 her classes were conducted in French. So it comes as no surprise that Foster — a working actress since age 3 — chose a drama about a child prodigy for her feature-directing debut.  Little Man Tate, starring herself, Diane Wiest and Harry Connick Jr., tells the fictional story of a 7-year old genius, Fred Tate, played by newcomer Adam Hann-Byrd. It's stretching things to say Foster's own life mirrors Fred's — a kid with a shocking genius at painting, music and math who tries desperately to fit in with his peers — but there are similarities: The single mother. A long-gone, barely referred-to father. And the early mastery of language:  Foster reportedly was speaking full sentences before age 2, and handling cold scripts at 5. "I don't know," Foster ponders about her abilities. "I wasn't a genius at math and all that other stuff. And I was not at all that personality; I was not quiet or passive. I was an actor kid, so I was uninhibited and out there and danced on tables." Foster's first directing job was a short titled "Hands of Time," part of a BBC documentary, Americans; she also wrote the script. That led to a chance to direct Tate for Orion Pictures, which has traditionally given first-time feature-directors a shot — witness Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves. Now, with an Oscar for her performance in The Accused, a nomination for The Silence of the Lambs and her feature directing debut, Foster realized "the next step is crucial for me. After The Accused and Silence, I'm more scrutinized. And if my name is on the marquee now, any kind of failure is a bigger issue than if I wasn't." All of which are good reasons to be picky about future projects. "A lot of people have to work all the time, so they'll do two or three films a year, whatever comes along, and they just disregard the things that aren't right about it," Foster says. "I'm not a hack — I just don't know how to work that much. I don't have any ideas left at the end of a movie. And it's more fun this way," she says. "If you've got to spend three of four months on something, it'd better be something you enjoy." — top —