People: He just didn’t feel the magic
First kisses can be tricky – even for Harry Potter.
Daniel Radcliffe, star of the Potter films, said Friday while in Tokyo for the premiere of the new installment that it took a few takes to get over the nerves of his first on-screen kiss.
In “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” the latest in the megahit series based on J.K. Rowling‘s books, Harry shares a smooch with longtime crush Cho Chang, played by Katie Leung.
“When we started it, we were both a bit nervous,” Radcliffe said. “But after the first few takes, it was sort of like any other scene, which is never really what people want to hear. It doesn’t really feel any different, because you are still acting.”
Producer David Heyman said director David Yates cleared the set to create more intimacy for the scene, so the crew crowded around a monitor to watch.
“The makeup artist, who’s known Daniel really well from the age of 10, she shed a tear,” Heyman said. “For me, it was quite moving.”
“Order of the Phoenix” opens in the United States on July 11.
Making himself perfectly clear
Isaiah Washington says racism was a factor in his firing from “Grey’s Anatomy” after he twice used an anti-gay slur.
Washington tells Newsweek magazine that “someone heard the booming voice of a black man and got really scared and that was the beginning of the end for me. …
“It didn’t help … that I was a black man who wasn’t a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn’t speak like I’d just left the plantation and that can be a problem for people sometime.”
Eve of obstruction
Rapper-actress Eve must wear an alcohol-detecting ankle bracelet for 45 days after pleading no contest to driving with a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit.
Eve, whose real name is Eve Jihan Jeffers, was arrested early April 26 after her gold Maserati struck a center median on Hollywood Boulevard. She was sentenced to 36 months of probation and a $390 fine.
The Foxy hunt
A woman charged with assaulting and robbing Foxy Brown was released from jail after the rapper failed to appear before a grand jury to testify against her.
Police say Roshawn Anthony and three other people teamed up to rob Brown of a Louis Vuitton bag, $500 in cash and credit cards. Brown has denied she was the victim.
Fake fur will fly
Paul McCartney‘s designer daughter Stella will co-host a virtual anti-fur protest next month in the online fantasy world Second Life.
The weeklong protest – including Linda McCartney mini-veggie-burger stalls – begins July 12 on an island in the computer-generated alternative universe, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced.
Like her late mother, the 35-year-old Stella is an animal rights supporter and does not use leather or fur in her designs.
The birthday bunch
Singer Lena Horne is 90. Actor David Alan Grier is 52. Actor Vincent D’Onofrio is 48. “American Idol” winner Fantasia Barrino is 23.