People: There’s nothing wild about Harry
Don’t get your hopes up, gossip hounds: Daniel Radcliffe, who turns 18 later this month, isn’t planning any trips to rehab or jail.
“What everybody would love to see is me having ditched school and then just going wild,” the star of the “Harry Potter” movies tells Entertainment Weekly magazine.
“That’s what I’m determined not to give them.”
Radcliffe, who was 11 when he was first cast as the bespectacled schoolboy wizard, feels like he’s grown into the role with the new “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”
“I actually don’t mind watching myself, for sort of the first time in five films,” he says. “I have got better. Thank God!
“I still see a lot of room for improvement, obviously. But I’ve started to see Harry rather than myself.”
Radcliffe’s racy role in the London stage production of “Equus,” in which he played a troubled stableboy who mutilates horses, was a departure from his wholesome image.
“There probably will be some people that never quite separate me from Harry,” he says. “I’m just going to get on with it.”
Putting it in idle
Nicole Richie‘s driving-under-the-influence trial has been delayed until Aug. 16 so a defense expert can challenge evidence in the case.
Richie’s lawyer said Wednesday that a doctor will rebut drug experts used by prosecutors, but that he’s unavailable until next month.
Twist and shout
A British court on Wednesday convicted a photographer of assaulting Heather Mills.
Jay Kaycappa grabbed Mills, the estranged wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney, by her shoulder to swing her round so he could photograph her face, prosecutors said.
They said Mills was cycling near her home last July when she ducked into an underground passage to escape photographers who were pursuing her “like a pack of animals.”
Mozart and the whale
On the musical memoirs front, David Letterman‘s longtime bandleader sidekick, Paul Shaffer, is putting memories of his show-biz career on paper (look for that in 2009).
So is Valerie Bertinelli, the actress who was married to guitar god Eddie Van Halen. “Losing It: And Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time,” which also documents her battle with her weight, is due next April.
Why, she’s udderly delightful
Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and her soccer star husband David strip down for some steamy photos in August’s W magazine.
They’re shown in various states of undress, kissing passionately, sunning atop a car and having an intimate moment in the bedroom.
“I think people are really going to see me for the first time,” Posh Spice says.
“I think they have this impression that I’m this miserable cow who doesn’t smile. But I’m actually quite the opposite.”
The birthday bunch
Pianist Van Cliburn is 73. Actor-comedian Bill Cosby is 70. Singer Christine McVie (Fleetwood Mac) is 64. Fitness guru Richard Simmons is 59. Actress Cheryl Ladd is 56. Actress Mel Harris (“thirtysomething”) is 50. Actor Topher Grace is 29. Actress Michelle Rodriguez is 29.