Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Craig T. Nelson: Tough Economic Times on Big and Small Screen/Soleil Moon Frye Gets Blue, in a Good Way

Tough economic times will be hitting Craig T. Nelson hard this fall — on the big and small screen. He plays the CEO in John Wells' forthcoming "Company Men" corporate downsizing drama, with Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Costner and Chris Cooper also in the cast. And on "Parenthood," he reveals, things will be going from bad to real bad for his family patriarch character, Zeek Braverman, who's been having money trouble.

"It's something that I talked about with Jason," says Nelson, referring to series creator Jason Katims. "It hasn't happened yet, but it's going to. With the finances, the counseling he and his wife (Bonnie Bedelia) are going through, and some of the other things that are going on in the family, they're trying to weather the storm."

Even as Zeek wades through his traumas, Nelson is enjoying himself immensely on the acclaimed NBC show. He obviously gets along better with his series grandkids off camera than he does as Zeek, who tends to make the kind of remarks that start family feuds.

"You try to make it comfortable for the kids, you know, because shooting a TV series — it's a very unnatural situation for the younger ones," he says. "It's fun to mix it up and hear what they're thinking. I love it. I love listening to their music. I asked Miles Heizer to make me a CD of music he likes so I can listen to it," he adds, referring to the 16-year-old actor who plays Lauren Graham's son on the show.

And he likes talking current events and such with 22-year-old Mae Whitman, who plays difficult teen Amber: "I spend a lot of time getting her viewpoints."

The affable star of vehicles ranging from his "Coach" series to "The Incredibles" is, of course, known for having some very strong opinions himself. He's remembered for his appearance last year on Glenn Beck's program, talking about refraining from paying taxes to protest out-of-control government spending, you may recall. So one might think talking politics on set could get dicey.

"I think as long as you don't escalate it into something that becomes very personal and vitriolic, you're fine," says Nelson. "There's a lot of hate speech out there. There's a lot of viewpoints that instill rancor, and that's just not right. It's about being able to garner a lot of different viewpoints, I think, and then find a center that's going to work for everybody."

SOMETHING BLUE: Soleil Moon Frye gets back into the series game — that is, her voice does — starting tomorrow (10/2) morning, with the launch of Nickelodeon's new "Planet Sheen" cartoon spinoff of "Jimmy Neutron." Says the one-time child star of "Punky Brewster" fame, "My kids are so excited, they cannot wait."

She tells us her 2-year-old daughter, Jagger, and 5-year-old daughter, Poet, have seen clips of her animated character, and "They say, 'Mommy, be blue.' It kind of looks like me, but blue," observes Frye.

She adds, "Animation is so much fun. You get to be completely uninhibited, have total freedom." She says her character is "quite the yodeler."

As for when Frye will return to acting in a live action kind of way, she tells us finding the time is tough. First, there's "being a mom." Then there's the fact "My life is insanity." She has a successful business to run: L.A.'s The Little Seed environmentally conscious children's boutique in which she's partnered — which now boasts a line on sale in Target stores. She's also made a deal with Penguin's Dutton division to write a book — a combination memoir and handbook for mommies. She has to complete it by December for Summer 2011 release.

Things are all the more bustling on the home front with the activities of her husband, Jason Goldberg, who is producing partners with Ashton Kutcher ("The Butterfly Effect," "Punk'd"). "They have like so many shows and movies going, I can barely keep up with it," says Frye.

The former "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" co-star has stayed best pals with cast mate Melissa Joan Hart, and fans have asked whether she'll guest on Hart's current ABC Family Channel "Melissa & Joey" sitcom. "We're both on Twitter, and I got 5,000 emails about it, and so did Melissa," Frye reports. "I love Melissa so much, I'm definitely open."

THE BIG-SCREEN SCENE: Another in the ongoing stream of film and TV projects born out of today's aggravating economic scene is Ben Stiller's "Tower Heist," which is set for a Nov. 8 production start with Brett Ratner at the helm. The action/comedy flick has Stiller as the ever-faithful building supervisor at a ritzy NYC apartment building — who learns he's been cheated out of his pension by a Bernie Madoff-style billionaire in the building. He then plans the perfect heist to get even.

Roman Polanski's 1968 hair-raising horror flick, "Rosemary's Baby," is being remade — as a USC student project for a directing class. Maybe that will spark interest in remaking the chiller on a larger scale.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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