De Niro’s new image
He used to be the Godfather, tough as nails and scaring people. Now he’s the father-in-law, tough as nails and making people laugh.Tough guy actor Robert De Niro is at it again in his latest turn as comedian in his new film Meet the Parents, which opened alongside Sly Stallone’s action flick remake Get Carter and kids’ animated movie, Digimon: The Movie.

Whether he’s mobbed up in The Godfather Part II (1974), The Untouchables (1987) or Casino (1995), psychotic in Taxi Driver (1976), bloodied in Raging Bull (1980), or stalking people in Cape Fear (1991), De Niro’s best known for playing bad guys. But at age 57, he seems to have mellowed.

In recent films like 1997’s Wag the Dog or 1999’s Analyze This, the two-time Oscar winner has shown a keen sense of comic timing mostly because audiences expected him to play a mean S.O.B. So when he cracked a joke, it was funny. And audiences should see the same thing in Parents.

“Imagine that you’re coming home to meet your girlfriend’s father, and you open the door and it’s De Niro,” said Jane Rosenthal, the actor’s partner in Tribeca Productions. “Open the door, and there is your worst nightmare.”

De Niro plays Jack Byrnes, a retired horticulturist and all-around nice guy living an easy-going life in the suburbs when his daughter, Pam (Teri Polo) brings her prospective fiancee Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) home to meet her parents. But Focker — and, yes, there is many a deliberate joke in that name — is nervous in the ’burbs, and his trip to the Byrnes’ home degenerates into a series of well-meaning, but stupid-looking mishaps that make him appear unfit to marry Jack’s first-born daughter.

When Greg learns that Jack’s seemingly nice guy image masks a former career as a CIA operative, his case of nerves turns worse and his quest to wed Pam even funnier.

Daryl Hannah makes London stage debut
Daryl Hannah has become the latest U.S. actress to appear on the British stage, starring in The Seven Year Itch at the Queen’s Theater in London’s West End. Following in the wake of Nicole Kidman and Kathleen Turner in London’s theaterland, Hannah took to the stage in a remake of Billy Wilder’s 1950 comedy.

Her part, that of a temptress who dominates the fantasies of a married man living next door, was made famous by Marilyn Monroe. Hannah, 39, who starred as a mermaid alongside Tom Hanks in the movie Splash, used the services of hypnotist Paul McKenna in an attempt to overcome her nerves. Hannah, a former girlfriend of the late John F. Kennedy Jr, also starred as an android in Ridley Scott’s cult classic Bladerunner.

Tigerland star tops big pic pair
Colin Farrell, freshly minted as a potential star after his Hollywood debut Friday in Tigerland, has become the centerpiece in two high-profile studio projects. Farrell will star in the Fox 2000 drama Phone Booth for Tigerland director Joel Schumacher in November, and will follow by toplining for director Greg Hoblit in the MGM drama Hart’s War in January.

In Hart’s War, Farrell replaces Edward Norton as a POW with a law school background who’s assigned to defend a black soldier accused of murdering a fellow soldier in a WWII German prison camp. War is shaping up to be a star-studded affair. Bruce Willis has committed to play the role of the senior American commander in the camp, and MGM is negotiating with Anthony Hopkins to play the role of the Nazi commandant who runs the prison camp.
Over at Fox 2000, a search for the right guy to hold the screen in the single-location Larry Cohen-scripted drama Phone Booth ended when Schumacher tapped his Tigerland find to play a slick publicist who answers a ringing pay phone, only to find there’s an assassin on the other end who’ll shoot to kill if the call is disconnected. The picture will shoot in Manhattan for a week or two in November.

Casting the right actor has been a maddening process — Jim Carrey committed over the summer then had a change of heart — until Schumacher decided to rehire Farrell after plucking the Irish import from obscurity to topline Fox’s gritty ensemble Tigerland. When the film opened to strong reviews, the studio was convinced Schumacher should continue the association beyond one picture.

Titanic star Winslet gives birth to girl
British actress Kate Winslet has given birth to a baby girl. The 25-year-old, who starred alongside U.S. actor Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit movie Titanic, gave birth to a daughter on Oct 12, sources said.

Both mother and daughter are doing well. In August the actress and husband Jim Threapleton, 26, moved into a $1.17 million riverside home in southern England. Winslet now plans to take a break from her acting career to bring up her daughter, the Daily Mail reported.

In March Winslet said she had no fears about motherhood disrupting her movie career. “I’ve never been one for changing what is real in order to make my career buzz”, she said. “My career comes second. There are some actors who do back-to-back jobs and are anxious when others are in the limelight. That’s not me”, she added. Winslet met her film director husband on the set of the movie Hideous Kinky in 1997. The couple were married in November 1998.