Jerry Weintraub’s “Behind the Candelabra” (Michael Douglas/Matt Damon) just won the Emmy, Golden Globe, PGA award, etc. Around since the Beginning, Weintraub must’ve originally said, “Let There Be Light.” He’s created everything else.
“My newest HBO shtick? ‘The Brink.’ It’s a geopolitical dark crisis ‘M*A*S*H’ set in Pakistan and the Middle East. With a comedic edge to our State Department. Tim Robbins plays Secretary of State Walter Hollander. Jack Black’s a lowly foreign service officer Alex Coppins, bad dude, in our Islamabad embassy. The third compromised, desperate soul’s a Navy fighter pilot whose name I forgot. They must pierce the chaos to save the planet from WWIII.
“Director’s Jay Roach, who did ‘Game Change,’ exec producers are Roberto Benabib (from ‘Weeds’) and his brother Kim. We just got the pilot. The series starts in June.”
Congratulations.
“Wait. I got more. ‘Westworld.’ Michael Crichton’s hour-a-week drama. A dark odyssey about artificial consciousness and the future of sin. It’s got robots. It’s freaky. Like me.”
Great.
“Wait. I got more. I’m off to London. Doing ‘Tarzan.’ We’re building a jungle there.” London? A jungle?
Nice.
“Wait. I got more.”
Forget it. We’re on the phone so long my roots need a touch-up.
Know this
Real setting for “Downton Abbey” Highclere Castle’s real Countess of Carnarvon schleps here the 18th for a reception . . . Also know today’s hijacking tune is “You Light Up My Car” . . . Speaking of Brits and songs, etc.: Paul McCartney and the missus wandering the High Line Hotel lobby . . . Note from the new mayor thanking “well-wisher friends,” saying “Chirlane, Chiara, Dante and I are thrilled.”
Actress does homework
Zoe Kazan. Pronounced Zoe-ee. Granddaughter of Elia (pronounced Uh-leeya) Kazan. Playing identical twins in the new film “The Pretty One,” she says:
“One’s beautiful. One not. One’s brazen. One swallows her words. One’s sexual; one not. After an accident, one awakes thinking she’s her sister. I worked with the director — who wrote the movie and has had both loss and grief in her own life — three months. Sat in her house, switched back and forth, playing both parts, did the script line by line, different voice placement for totally different characters.
“What I did was, I prepared.”
Dinner or 50
Philanthropic Francine LeFrak created Same Sky beaded bracelet jewelry to help Rwandan women who suffered the country’s genocide. She taught them. She sells their product here. The income supports them.
Friday she gave a dinner for 50 — like all Park Avenue apartments have that size dining-room table, right? — for its first lady, Jeannette Kagame, her Smith College daughter and Pace University son. Tina Brown discussed Women in the World, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop discussed Jersey City and co-host Rick Friedberg — since gorillas live in Rwanda — gave each guest a toy stuffed silverback.
Where they are
Palm Beach is hot, by George. George W. Bush around, happy to be recognized. George Hamilton around looking not to be recognized . . . Vanity Fair juicing up a brand new Sunset Boulevard venue for its Oscar-night party . . . Awaiting Delta to Florida Rosario Dawson and mama sipped merlot in OTG’s wine bar . . . Unconfirmed, but I’m hearing A-Rod’s sucking around to maybe do sports announcing. And although he may have said wrong things — civilization knows, me not.
The 7 train. Guy — dirty, long fingernails, mussed hair, strange smell — inspects the subway seat, grabs a soiled napkin from his ripped coat . . . and wipes the seat before he sits down.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.