Save a Universe, save the world?
Less than a month after being crowned Miss Universe, Riyo Mori is hoping to land another job – a role on the NBC sci-fi series “Heroes.”
“As soon as I won Miss Universe I had this big chance,” Mori said in an interview Monday.
“I’ve never acted before. I went to the casting audition and read a script in English and Japanese, and they said it was really good. So I hope I can be in the show.”
Mori said the role of Yaeko would be a love interest for one of the main characters.
The 20-year-old dancer won the 2007 Miss Universe contest in Mexico City last month.
The only other time Japan has won the pageant was in 1959, when Akiko Kojima became the first Miss Universe from Asia.
“Japanese people never cared about beauty pageants before,” Mori says. “But this is a huge thing in Japan now.”
Mori, who studied classical ballet in Canada, says her long-term goal is to open a dance school. Her mother was also a dancer.
She says the long years she spent training in dance helped build her character
“I think I have a samurai soul,” she says. “I’m very patient, and I can serve others.”
For whom the bell tolls
Kristen Bell acknowledges that it’s tough to let go of Veronica Mars, the wisecracking teenage sleuth she portrayed for three seasons on the TV series of the same name.
“It feels sort of like graduating high school. You really only recognize how special it was once it’s gone away,” Bell says.
“And of course everyone graduates from different jobs then they move on, but I don’t know I’ll find as special a show ever again.”
The CW network canceled the cult hit May 17, but has until Friday to bring it back as a midseason replacement.
The final sunset
John Lennon was headed home to see his son Sean when he was gunned down outside New York City’s Dakota apartments in 1980, widow Yoko Ono says.
“We were returning from the studio, and I said: ‘Should we go and have dinner before we go home?’ and John was saying, ‘No, lets go home because I want to see Sean before he goes to sleep,’ ” Ono told a BBC interviewer.
Bracket racket?
Actor Wesley Snipes is being selectively targeted for prosecution on federal tax evasion charges because he is black, his attorneys argue in a motion to dismiss the indictment.
The star of the “Blade” trilogy, who’s charged with failure to file returns from 1999 through 2004, is simply a victim of “unscrupulous tax advice,” his lawyers say.
So, she really can act
Back behind bars, Paris Hilton says she will no longer “act dumb.”
“I used to act dumb. … That act is no longer cute,” the hotel heiress said in a phone call to ABC’s Barbara Walters.
“Now, I would like to make a difference. … God has given me this new chance.”
The birthday bunch
Singer Vic Damone is 79. Actor-singer Jim Nabors is 77. Jazz musician Chick Corea is 66. Sports announcer Marv Albert is 66. Actor Timothy Busfield is 50. Rapper Grandmaster Dee (Whodini) is 45. Blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd is 30.