Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

"American Idol" Season 8 winner Kris Allen shrugs off the fact that his two favorites for this year's winner — Haley Reinhart and Casey Abrams — didn't make it to the final showdown.

"It is what it is. The people in the finale are great, too — Lauren and Scotty. I can't imagine going through what they're going through at that age, so kudos to them," adds the 25-year-old performer, speaking of 16-year-old Lauren Alaina and 17-year-old Scotty McCreery.

"She's a sweetheart, really nice. When they sang that Carrie Underwood and Randy Travis song together ("I Told You So"), Lauren just blew away everyone in the audience," adds Allen — who happens to be Alaina's favorite past "Idol" winner.

Allen says he'll be at both tonight's (5/24) final performance show and tomorrow night's (5/25) crowning of this season's "Idol" as an audience member.

"There's always a party after the results show, and I think I'll go to that," he says. "It's a lot of fun and great to see all the people you don't get to see very often."

The singer-songwriter will be among the stellar lineup for this Sunday's (5/29) National Memorial Day Concert in Washington D.C., performing before an estimated crowd of some 300,000 — and millions more watching live, here and abroad.

"That will be, without question, the biggest crowd I've sung for — by far," he notes with a laugh. "They asked me, and when you think of something like that, it's kind of a no-brainer. I'm really excited to be out there that day."

Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna co-host, with a lineup that also includes Gen. Colin Powell, "Idol's" Pia Toscano, Forest Whitaker, Dianne Wiest, B.B. King, Jason Ritter, Hayley Westenra, Daniel Rodriguez, Yolanda Adams and the National Symphony Orchestra.

Allen will sing "God Bless the USA" at the event honoring those who have served or are serving in the military, particularly those who lost their lives in the line of duty. Lending a particularly emotional personal note to the event, Allen says that his wife's brother is just now coming back from Iraq.

"Everyone's really happy. I'd love to have him at the concert, but he'll probably want to just be home chilling with his wife."

Also, Allen found out recently that "Still Got Tonight," which he co-wrote, and which has become a single for Matthew Morrison, is going to be performed by Morrison in the June 8 season finale of "Glee."

"I met Matt not too long ago, and we had lunch together.

He's a really nice guy. And then I hung out on the set of 'Glee.' That was really cool. That it's in the finale is even better. It's nice to be on this side of things, for once," he adds, speaking of his behind-the-scenes role.

Allen has been focused on writing songs for himself of late, in anticipation of recording another album soon. He tells us, "I'm hoping that — it should be — out sometime this year. If not, I'll look at it as a failure."

UP AND COMER: Colin Ford, 14, reports that Matt Damon put him at ease right away after the juvenile actor was cast as Damon's son in Cameron Crowe's forthcoming "We Bought a Zoo."

"He was really down-to-earth, one of the nicest, greatest actors I've ever met. We got to do some general scenes together and got to know each other before we did any scenes where we were arguing or really close or anything like that," reports Ford, who also worked with Elle Fanning and Thomas Hayden Church in "We Bought a Zoo." The story of a father who moves his young family to the countryside to renovate and reopen a struggling zoo also stars Scarlett Johansson.

Ford's voice is already quite recognizable to the Disney Channel's preschool set. He plays the title character in the daily animated adventure show "Jake and the Never Land Pirates" — which is the highest-rated preschool show on the channel ever.

However, the affable teen actor says, "I go to a normal school, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sometimes I'll get out of school 20, 30 minutes early to record. There are friends of mine who don't really even know I do the show."

He has been caught, "when a little brother or sister kind of recognize my voice — 'Hey, are you kind of like the main guy?' They laugh. I didn't really keep it quiet, but some people know and some don't."

DANCE, DANCE, DANCE: A June 18 production start has been set for "Battlefield America" — an independent feature about a dance battle, starring singer, songwriter, rapper and actor Marques Houston. He'll play a workaholic lawyer who finds himself assigned to 120 hours of community service, who starts working with a group of at-risk kids in Long Beach, Calif. The kids have a dance team, and before long, he finds himself torn between work commitments and helping the crew make it to the dance-off called "Battlefield America."

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.

COPYRIGHT 2011 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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