Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

The deliciously outspoken Emmy-winning actress Holland Taylor says she had to think long and hard about taking the role of Rob Schneider and Steve Buscemi's mother in the upcoming indie feature "The Chosen One," which she shot this summer.

"It intimidated the crap out of me," says Taylor, who's up for another Emmy for playing Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer's mother on "Two and a Half Men."

"I play a depressed 70-year-old woman — very different from the kind of women I'm usually cast as — and it was tremendously challenging. I wondered how I was going to do it."

She explains, "This is a woman of no description. If she walked into a room, you would never turn your head, never notice her … an invisible person … and it made me kind of scared to death. I'm used to playing roles that on paper are clever, interesting, intelligent, aggressive, strong personalities, but this is a woman of no distinction."

To get into character, Taylor says, "I had no makeup, no mascara, nothing. Then the makeup artist lightly sprayed on something to make me paler than I am and sprayed on some age spots. We dyed my own strawberry blond hair gray and then grayed up my teeth. Then, because this was a woman who would not take care of herself, I kind of squished myself down because this kind of person would be stooped at 70."

She adds that ultimately the whole experience was "fun, even though I remained nervous throughout. I can't wait to see me in it. I had these little skinny legs in big, old shoes. I'm going to look like Minnie Mouse. I felt like I was a little girl playing in my mother's shoes."

LOOK OUT: The "Lost" troupe has just started shooting again in Hawaii, and things are looking bad — in a good way — for the island dwellers, whose show sputtered a little bit but found its mojo again toward the end of last season.

The newcomers on the series' forthcoming episodes "are going to be scarier" than anyone seen on the island so far. That's the word from Emmy-nominated "Lost" actor Michael Emerson — and that's saying something, considering Emerson's character seemed to personify evil last season.

Emerson — who plays Ben Linus, leader of the castaways known as "The Others" — reminds that at the end of last season's finale, Jack Sawyer (Matt Fox) was trying to signal a boat offshore in hopes of being rescued despite Ben's dire warnings that "it could be the death of everyone on the island."

Now Emerson predicts there will be yet another shift in power between the combatant inhabitants on the hit ABC drama when it returns midseason.

Although he notes that none of the cast knows for sure what's going to happen this season, "things tend to go from bad to worse on this show, so it's fair to assume anyone else who arrives on the island couldn't be a happy event."

Emerson says changes are afoot for Ben, too. The mythical Jacob, whom Ben consistently maintained was the real leader of "The Others," was finally seen briefly last season — "If you looked close and had TiVo," quips Emerson. "He was this big, shadowy dude. I don't know if we're going to see a personification of Jacob this season, but I think, as the source of power on the island, we have him on our hands. He's that force or power that is important now, and it looks like he or it has chosen John Locke (Terry O'Quinn). So it looks to me like Ben is no longer the anointed manager of the island. It looks like Jacob only has one helper at a time, and it might not be Ben anymore, so Ben is vulnerable now."

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

TRIPPINGLY ON THE TOUNGUE: British actor Jason Isaacs, who has mastered a Rhode Island accent for his Showtime series "Brotherhood," says of learning how to speak like an American, "One of the great things about America is that the president can in theory have the same accent as the garbage man, though it's very unlikely." We're not going to touch that one!

CRAZY AND A FOX: "Dirty, Sexy Money" promos have been touting Natalie Zea's character, Karen Darling, as the "Queen of the Damned" in the wealthy, dysfunctional family known as the Darling clan on ABC's new prime-time soap, debuting Sept. 26. However, Zea wants us to know of her character, "I'm crazy in a quite predatory way. … That makes it a lot more interesting. Karen is the eldest daughter of five siblings. She's been married three times, which I think she's a little too young for, so we're going to call one of those a quickie Vegas wedding," she adds with a laugh. "But she's this hopeless romantic on the surface with a lot going on underneath. It's the dichotomy of this sort of fragile, wide-eyed optimist mixed in with this mama-bear predator who'll eat you alive while painting her fingernails."

And while doing that, she'll be dressed to kill, of course. "Karen is very, very wealthy, and I think with that wealth comes a certain responsibility to look the part," says Zea. "The clothes are ridiculous! We have the stylist from 'Sex and the City' and 'The Devil Wears Prada.'" She adds they've come up with a signature look and designer for her character. "Roberto Cavalli just seemed right for the new character. … There's a lot of gold snake jewelry details on a lot of it — and to have a python aspect seemed really appropriate."

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 2007 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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