The week’s big movie? Not “Casablanca” or “Gone With the Wind.” We’re talking a picture about Lego. Lego? Yeah, “The Lego Movie.”
In ambled sneezing Richard Kind wheezing: “Don’t come near me. I’m dying.” Why’s he not home? “My kids. Crazy to see this.”
It opened in a perfect childproof venue — 42nd and Eighth. AMC Empire has 25 screens. Non-red carpet on Floor 5, the film Floor 3, candy Floor 4, johns Floor 8.
Liam Neeson: “I play Will Ferrell’s bad-cop sidekick. My head swivels, so I become good cop. I read the script, and it was funny. We filmed in New York. Only three sessions a couple of hours at a time. I can’t believe I’ve been so busy. Eight films coming out this year.”
Elizabeth Banks plays “the take-charge, kick-butt heroine who’s really an inch-and-a-half-tall doll and saves the boys. My kids — 3 and 15 months — play with Legos. Make them into stairs, build Barbie’s tunnel with them.”
Elizabeth — “My 40th birthday’s this week” — had to immediately make a plane from there. “Atlanta. To shoot ‘Hunger Games.’ ” Despite slush, she wore sleeveless mini that barely covered her bra. Naked legs. Open-toe sandal spikes. Her biggest covering? Fake lashes. “I’ll change in the car. I have fur-lined Jimmy Choo boots. I’m not keeping this dress. What am I going to do with it?
“I grew up in Massachusetts. It’s disappointing New Yorkers aren’t sturdier. A little snow threatens them.”
I rushed Elizabeth because she was rushing for a plane. A half-hour later I left. She was still there.
Where they are
Fran Healy of MSG’s “Halls of Fame” inhaling mussels at Flex Mussels . . . . . Barbara Walters dedicating Columbia Presbyterian Hospital Cardiac Emergency Room for the elderly.
Pay attention
TV: Irascible “Shark Tank” panelist Kevin O’Leary asked Bruce Littlefield to do his autobio. Answer? “No. I don’t do books with people who enjoy tearing down and embarrassing others.” . . . New show “Hot Bench,” inside three judges’ private robing rooms and how decisions get made, debuts Monday, Sept. 5. Judge Judy’s its creator . . . More: Sunday, 3:15 p.m., an anchor mentioned “CNN’s reliable sources” just after a crawl appeared about Syrians “evacuated from homs.”
Hoffman tales timeless
Reporters circled producer David Katz. Anderson Cooper even phoned. Wrong guy. Not the screenwriter who found Philip Seymour Hoffman’s body. Oddly, both David Katzes once lived in the same West Side building. Matt Damon to me on Hoffman: “Who knows was he ever fueled by insecurity or fear? I don’t know that. Actors have their own worries. I know I once put myself out of obscurity. I watched Affleck do it. So I myself never fear. I did it once. I could do it again.”
George Clooney to me on Hoffman: “He was a friend. I knew him well. A very sweet guy. Who knows what drives anyone to do what they may do? Hard to comment on what he did. It’s heartbreaking.”
Nude reluctance
New book “Mad as Hell” says Faye Dunaway ankled 1976’s “Network” set, refusing to seem nude with William Holden. A fast agreement specified parameters. She returned. 1981’s TV replay, she again objected. Visible nipples violated the agreement. Stylists even now burble more panicked, franticked young stars will show even more cracks, crotches, navels, nipples, butts and boobs at March 2’s Oscars.
Invites to Second Avenue Deli for pastrami, corned beef, gefilte fish, kosher pickles, matzo ball chicken soup. Same night everyone was inhaling 17 Chinese courses. Invitee: “Jewish food on Chinese New Year?” Hostess: “There’s never a time you can’t eat pastrami.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.