Study The Fiennes Print: It Says That Ralph Is Sexy

Do what you want. But please don’t call Ralph Fiennes sexy.

At least not to his face.

“The very language that people use about sexy roles and being a star is a language that I distrust,” the 35-year-old Welsh actor told the Los Angeles Daily News. “It’s never been something that I can buy into or put my money on.”

Nominated for Oscars for his acting in “Schindler’s List” and “The English Patient,” Fiennes is featured in the upcoming film “Oscar and Lucinda.” In that film, he’s less sexy than he is addicted; he plays a minister obsessed by the need to gamble.

“I just loved the character,” Fiennes said. “I loved his dilemma, I loved his guilt, I loved his jubilation and I loved his confusion.”

Loose talk

Mariel Hemingway on the question of whether her sister, Margaux Hemingway, had committed suicide (in In Style magazine): “Not that it matters. She’s dead. But she was doing so well, she had turned her life around, she had never felt more positive.”

To her friends, she’s known as Buster

Diane Keaton turns 52

Looooocy, I’m ho-ome, you got some splainin’ to do

Based on original scripts, an international version of “I Love Lucy” is being made primarily for Spanish-speaking audiences. Brazilian film and television actress Xuna will star in the title role. Whereas in the original, Desi Arnaz would rant at Lucille Ball in his Cuban Spanish, in this version Xuna will rant at her husband in her native Portuguese.

Of course, all his enemies sleep with the fishes

After watching “The Godfather, Part 2” on New Year’s Eve, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani insisted the film does not glorify the mob. “I think that movies are movies,” Giuliani said, “It should not be something that people are offended by.”

She finally snared her prime suspect

Speaking of New Year’s Eve, another celebrity highlight included the marriage between British actress Helen Mirren, 51, and American director Taylor Hackford, 53. The day also was Hackford’s birthday.

But who did they root for in the Rose Bowl?

On New Year’s Day, Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Reiser and two lesser-known confederates - Larry Miller and Mark Schiff - kept their traditional date at a Brooklyn cafe. Waiter Bobby Quidone told the New York Daily News that in 1981 the friends were “just a group that came in. You didn’t recognize any of them.” This year they arrived in a black stretch limousine, puffing expensive Cuban cigars.

Picture it now: ‘Annie Hall 2,’ starring Soon-Yi Previn

When asked why Woody Allen would write a part in a forthcoming play for new wife Soon-Yi Previn, theatrical producer Julian Schlossberg answered that if Allen could “write parts in his movies for Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow, he can certainly write something for his wife.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Photos

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Dan Webster