Emmanuelle Seigner

Emmanuelle Seigner stars in Julian Schnabel's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." She is a model, an actress and also a singer in the band Ultra Orange and Emmanuelle. She has two children with her husband, the director Roman Polanski. Describe your music to me a little bit! Well, it's very much, very kind of Velvet Underground, it's rock 'n' roll. There are 14 songs on the album and we do -- we did a rock 'n' roll version of "Rosemary's Lullaby," you know, from the movie. I really like it.

How lousy has Roman Polanski's life been? His mother died at Auschwitz; his pregnant wife was murdered by the Manson family; and in 1978, after pleading guilty to unlawful intercourse and serving an evaluation period in the Chino state prison, he says he learned that a judge who had led him to believe that he would serve no more jail time actually was considering a long sentence, followed by deportation. On the eve of his sentencing, the acclaimed director of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown" fled the U.S. and never returned.

How lousy has Roman Polanski's life been? His mother died at Auschwitz; his pregnant wife was murdered by the Manson family; and in 1978, after pleading guilty to unlawful intercourse and serving an evaluation period in the Chino state prison, he says he learned that a judge who had led him to believe that he would serve no more jail time actually was considering a long sentence, followed by deportation. On the eve of his sentencing, the acclaimed director of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown" fled the U.S. and never returned.

Emmanuelle Seigner stars in Julian Schnabel's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." She is a model, an actress and also a singer in the band Ultra Orange and Emmanuelle. She has two children with her husband, the director Roman Polanski. Describe your music to me a little bit! Well, it's very much, very kind of Velvet Underground, it's rock 'n' roll. There are 14 songs on the album and we do -- we did a rock 'n' roll version of "Rosemary's Lullaby," you know, from the movie. I really like it.

The setting -- Woodland, the Beverly Hills estate once owned by Greta Garbo -- is glamorous old Hollywood, and so is the host, Robert Evans -- legendary producer and Hollywood force of nature. For a pre-Oscar luncheon last week, Evans set the stage with black-and-white couches scattered around the frontyard pool and bowls of hydrangeas topped with diamond jewelry from Van Cleef & Arpels. Every other guest seems to be wearing sunglasses so dark they could stare right into the sun.

Polanski to Take on Jekyll/Hyde: Roman Polanski, 56, who fled to France in 1978 after he was convicted of having sex with a minor in California, has a new project, New York magazine reports in its Nov. 27 issue. The director of "Chinatown" and "Tess" is expected to write and direct a Warner Bros. film based loosely on the characters Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Production notes for Mark Hanlon's "Buddy Boy" describe it as "a dark and twisted exploration of faith, alienation and madness"--and is it ever! Aidan Gillen's Francis is an introverted stutterer who lives in an extravagantly decrepit inner-city apartment with his disabled stepmother, Sal (Susan Tyrrell), a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, cackling old harpy in a fright wig who's forever warning Francis of God's wrath hailing down upon him.

The idea of a sheer skirt worn over pants, which even Giorgio Armani has tried in the past, showed up in the Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester and Commes des Garcons shows. It seems to be a sartorial situation the hard-drinking Maryann Thorpe of the sitcom "Cybill" could find herself in. What, did you put your trousers on in the morning, forget you already got dressed, and wrap a skirt on? Ditto carrying two purses, which is how the models at Christian Dior were sent out on the runway.

Golden Globe-winning director (for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") and artist Julian Schnabel was going through a rough patch emotionally back in 1973. "I had this difficulty with this girlfriend," he says, "this whole sense of loss and these problems." Then he heard Lou Reed's album "Berlin," which revolves around a doomed couple dealing with depression and drugs. "This record meant a lot to me," Schnabel recalls. "It said much to me.

An obsessive fan worms her way into the life of a pop star in "Backstage," which could be characterized as a contemporary take on "All About Eve," only French, and with a more self-sacrificing ingenue. Emmanuelle Bercot's film features a platinum-blond Emmanuelle Seigner as the mercurial Lauren Waks, a diva who looks like Deborah Harry, sings like Vanessa Paradis and inspires fans to gather on the street in front of her hotel and yowl like a late-'80s Madonna.

Better than Harrison Ford, John Travolta or even Leonardo DiCaprio, getting the devil involved in your picture is a sure way of getting it made. Not necessarily as a producer or financial backer (though that probably wouldn't hurt) but merely as a subject. From 1899's "Chorus Girls and the Devil" (little more than the title survives, unfortunately) to the current "The Ninth Gate," Satan has always been the movie business' go-to guy.