KEY POINTS:
Someone just asked Matthew Fox about "the homoerotic nature of Jack's relationship with Sawyer" on Lost. Only he said "Jake". Must be a fan.
I'm in LA on a press junket: 80 interviews in six days with stars from shows such as Lost, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives, and a bunch of new ones to be screened next year. So it's inevitable we'll hear some absolute pearlers, not just from the stars but the journos entrusted with robbing them of their inner-most thoughts.
We've been divided into three groups of about 10 reporters from different media territories, so competing publications won't end up with the same quotes. The concept is coldly efficient. The stars are trucked in on the celebrity conveyer belt, left at the mercy of about 10 blood-thirsty hacks for 20 minutes then shipped on to the next two groups. Voila - a potential 30-odd articles about the show.
This might seem a crude way to get up close with a star but if you were offered fifth division in Lotto, you'd take the money too. Anyway, it's surprising how much insight you can get if you watch closely. For instance, it's been said that Calista Flockhart is a snob. Several of the journos get huffy about her not wanting to talk about Harrison Ford but after our allotted window into World McBeal, I'm convinced she's just shy.
Sometimes you get someone everyone wants to meet - Salma Hayek for instance - so they merge the three groups into one big, bitch-fighting party (ie, a press conference). Other times you get stars no one is particularly interested in so you sit there discussing where they bought their shoes.
The chagrin of the press junket reporter is not just the tight-lipped talent but the other reporters' questions. I'm not saying mine are all hard-hitting beauties but inevitably there are one or two in your group who will have you laughing under your breath.
France, for instance, speaks perfect English but brilliantly soups up his accent to ask the tricky numbers: "I vant to know vhy you like deez TV roles vere you play, er, how you say eet ... sluts?" Israel isn't scared to ask some of their older Hollywood actresses how they feel about their saggy boobs and wrinkles, until put in his place by a ballsy and beautiful Sally Field.
And although Japan has some sniggering at her trademark inquiry, "How you keep your beauty?" I'm glad she's asking it. I'd secretly like to know how Jennifer Love Hewitt keeps her skin so flawless but I'll be damned if I'm going to put it to her.
The publicists running the circus occasionally go haywire too. When I pick up a bottle of water on my way into a press conference with Ellen DeGeneres, one of the stressed walkie-talkied madams yells, "You can't take water in - Ellen's coming!" as though the talkshow host is allergic to the stuff.
My Canadian pal reports her bemusement at being asked to move so the teeny-weeny Teri Hatcher could pass through a corridor that would fit about 15 Teri Hatchers.
One morning I overhear a snooty staffer on the set of new drama Brothers & Sisters compare the fleet of foreign journalistic minds wandering through their domain as "like being invaded by ants". I guess it's better than "scum".
But the real controversy comes before our interviews with the cast of Grey's Anatomy. We're the first press allowed on set after the well-documented biffo between Patrick Dempsey (McDreamy) and Isaiah Washington (Burke).
Anyone who asks about the biffo, or the sexuality of one of their co-stars will be thrown off the junket, we are warned. When Washington innocently broaches the topic of his co-workers, he is pulled from the interview because he's "due in production". Where's the reporter who asks about homoeroticism when you need him?
Anyway, the press junket experience is not something to complain about. This one was well organised, we got to meet lots of stars and the donuts were really, really good. Eh, Teri?
