BY MARILYN BECK and STACY JENEL SMITH

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  Matthew Broderick says he wouldn't be surprised if his and
wife Sarah Jessica Parker's five-year-old son, James, winds up
becoming a performer.  "He's a very good singer.  He's funny.  He's
very convincing if he wants something.  He just has these traits,"
says the proud dad.
       Not that anyone's pushing show business at young James.  In
fact, Broderick admits, "I'm not too comfortable showing him our
movies and stuff yet.  I'm avoiding it for now. He’s seen ‘Bee
Movie.’ He’s seen ‘Lion King’ and he knows I’m doing the voice, but
he barely understands that it’s all actors "
       Broderick has just come from soaking up some family time with
his wife and son at the Deer Valley ski resort in Utah before diving
into tub-thumping for " Then She Found Me" opening this Friday
(4/25). The film, adapted from Elinor Lipman's novel of the same
name, marked a reunion with Helen Hunt, who makes her directing debut
with it.  They met when they were in their young twenties and made
"Project X," then they went on to become a couple, then broke up but
stayed friends.  Now Matthew is playing the husband who dumps her but
then wants her back after she finds love with someone else (Colin
Firth) -- as she copes with the surprise appearance of her birth
mother (Bette Midler), and a pregnancy.
       "It was sort of funny to be playing the heel," admits
Matthew.  "But I think directing is a very good fit for Helen.  We
have talked about what kind of movies and acting we like for 20
years, so there were no surprises and she was always very generous."
   THE VIDEOLAND VIEW: “Desperate Housewives” latest ex-husband
hunk, Gary Cole, says his character won’t be jumping on and off the
bedroom merry-go-round on the ABC prime-time soap. Darn it! “He’s
pretty isolated,” says Cole, who was briefly introduced as Katharine
Mayfair’s (Dana Delany) thought to be dead, ex-husband Wayne Davis on
the show two Sundays ago. “I’m in the last five episodes with only
two more to shoot and I haven’t crossed paths with anybody except
this family. It’s pretty much about how he begins to insert himself
into his daughter, Dylan’s (Lyndsy Fonseca) life.” And quite
naturally, something lurks beneath Dad’s intentions. “He’s less than
genuine sometimes in dealing with whoever he’s dealing with,” says
Cole. On Wisteria Lane? Get out!
   Cole adds that “DH” creator/exec producer/writer Marc Cherry is
still keeping “everyone guessing. I know very little from week to
week where he’s going.”  According to Cole, Cherry gave him a clear
idea of what type of person his character is and he way he behaves
with other people, “but what you don’t know are plot points and how
he will put that inside of a story.”  Prior to joining “DH,” Cole
says he was more familiar with the players than the play. “I hadn’t
followed the show but I did a movie with Nicollette Sheridan quite a
while ago and I’ve also worked with Brenda Strong. I’d also met Dana
before, doing a play reading,” he recalls. “I’m a big fan of hers.”
   HEAR TO THERE:  Ira Glass, who has an avid public radio following
with his show "This American Life," admits it's taken two seasons to
get the hang of balancing his regular gig with its TV counterpart on
Showtime.  "It's been kind of a hard two years on the staff doing
both the radio and the TV. Our goal this year was to be able to do
the TV without the radio suffering in quality," says Glass.  "During
our first year, I feel like we made a really nice TV series, but we
ended up doing a lot more reruns on the radio than we normally would.
We did decent shows on the radio but it wasn't our most ambitious
work.  Whereas this season our radio shows have been just as good as
they ever are."
       The second season of the TV series returns May 4 and Glass
tells us they hope to get more of the radio fans on board.  "I think
the radio fans had a lot of fear about the TV show, but once they saw
it, they seemed to really like it.  One of the problems, though, is
many public radio listeners just do not get premium cable so most of
our core audience has not seen the show," notes Glass, who is hosting
a live "This American Life" event May 1 at the Skirball Center for
the Performing Arts on the campus of New York University.   "I'll do
some radio stories but most of it is showing our audience what the TV
show is."
   FROM THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT:  Katherine Waterston’s performance
in the May 9-opening “The Babysitters” is already being heralded as a
career maker – and the younger daughter of Sam Waterston is quick to
share the credit.  “John Leguizamo was an angel.  In any stressful
situation, you want someone who can make you laugh.  He’s hilarious.
We did almost all night shoots and at four in the morning, when
you’re punchy, things that might seem uncomfortable at other times
kind of crack you up.”  Katherine plays a babysitter who has an
affair with Leguizamo’s character, one of the fathers for whom she
works -- then turns into a high school madam as she sets up her
girlfriends with his buddies.

 

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