You gotta love a guy that admits he doesn’t mind being called “The Sexiest Man Alive” by People Magazine.
By Janet Donovan
Gordon Brown and Connie Millstein (Photo by Janet Donovan)
Actor Gabriel Byrne did just that at a party in his honor at the residence of Ambassador Michael and Marie Collins to launch “Imagine Ireland: A year of Irish arts in America 2011.”
“It’s a complimentary description,” he explained. “It’s harmless and don’t know why anyone would be offended.” What he doesn’t like being called is dark and brooding. “In Ireland,“ he said in a previous interview, “brooding is a term we use for hens. A brooding hen is supposed to lay eggs. Every time somebody says ‘He’s dark and brooding,’ I think: ‘He’s about to lay an egg.’”
Byrne, who has acted with Richard Burton and Kevin Spacey, dished on both. Of Burton he said, “I have never worked with an actor who had more charisma, more innate talent. I think he was a man who unfortunately died way before his time because of his battles with his own demons.”
Of Spacey, with whom he worked in “Usual Suspects” and for which Spacey won an Academy Award, he commented, “Kevin is probably the best mimic I’ve ever come across, particularly when he mimics me.”
Asked what the best thing about being Irish is, Byrne simply said, “being Irish.”
No Strings Attached
Tommy McFly and Kelly Collis hosted a screening of “No Strings Attached” at Loews in Georgetown.
Tommy McFly and Kelly Collis (Photo by Janet Donovan)
“It sounds like any number of ‘chick flicks’,” said 94.7 Fresh FM’s McFly, “but it’s far from average. The premise, Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher are best friends who hook up and try to keep ‘doing it’ without getting emotionally involved is a laugh-out-loud movie. “[It’s] sort of a modern-day ‘When Harry Met Sally,’” Collis said. “All the buzz afterward was whether or not the ‘butt shot’ [in the movie] was really [Kutcher] or a double. Even the few men who were there enjoyed the movie, a little raunchy and laugh-out-loud funny.”
“It was lighthearted and a breezy look at the way relationships work these days…casual and full of text messaging,” added Merge Creative Media’s Brendan Kownacki of Merge Creative Media.
Q&A Quickie
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, at a party for his recent memoir “Beyond the Crash,” addressed his “involuntary” exit from office with typical British humor. “I decided to write and learn some of the lessons over the past few years.” This of course, is a far cry from his long-ago predecessor Benjamin Gladstone, who “surprised people when he retired by running what was called The Midnight Club for fallen women.”
Actor Gabriel Byrne and Irish Amb Michael Collins (Photo by Janet Donovan)
HEARD:
Celebrity Chef Art Smith on his day off:
“Today I ran on the Mall. It’s freezing, but I got my run in and I feel wonderful and sexy.”
Steve Clemons on Grover Norquist and Afghanistan:
“The fact that Norquist is expressing the need to have that conversation is significant.
Rep. Charlie Gonzalez on former colleagues:
“I didn’t realize how much their leaving would impact me but it has.”
CNN’s Piers Morgan on his new gig:
“Madonna and I go back a long way. … I am kind of banning her before she refuses to come on.”
