Hollywood siren Uma Thurman is suing TV mafia boss Tony Soprano - for $260,000. Actor James Gandolfini, who plays the Mob godfather in hit American drama The Sopranos, is being taken to court by Thurman and her husband Ethan Hawke over a house deal that collapsed. The 40-year-old actor agreed to buy the A-List couple's house in New York's Greenwich Village and left a $260,000 deposit. But he then pulled out of the deal because he couldn't get permission to renovate the $3.9 million brownstone property. Gandolfini, who recently signed a $9.1 million deal to stay in the hit series, claims 31-year-old Thurman and fellow actor Hawke did not provide the paperwork he needed for planning permission. Now the couple have hit him with a lawsuit at Manhattan Supreme Court, claiming he has reneged on the house deal. A friend of both Gandolfini and the outraged pair reveals, "These three used to be friends. Now James is livid."

Russell Crowe has applied to become an Australian citizen. The handsome New Zealand-born actor has wanted to become an Aussie for more than a decade. But he has only just learned he doesn't have to give up his New Zealand citizenship to do so. Crowe says, "I've discovered you can have one and the other, which is great news. I will absolutely accept dual citizenship. I'll take an Australian passport. The way I feel about it is I am Australian - I go around the world and, when I talk about a film or play a gig with the band, I am perceived as an Australian. But I'm not going to deny my heritage, my New Zealand relatives, or the fact that part of my family is Maori. That would be completely disrespectful."

Viagra made Richard Harris too good at sex - so he's had to stop taking it. The 71-year-old Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone star admits the blue tablet worked so well it scared him. He says, "It worked too well. I was taking this woman out to dinner afterwards and couldn't zip up my trousers. I wouldn't use Viagra again. Your heart has to be good to take it."

Liz Hurley is in danger of failing dismally in her new career - as a shop beauty consultant. The actress and model is offering to provide advice about grooming with Estée Lauder products at London's posh Harvey Nichols department store for the highest bidder in an online charity auction. But so far, a week after the offer went online at WWW.Chivas.Com, there has been just one bid for $6,500. To rub salt into the wound, rising Hollywood star Charlize Theron has had a bid of $33,800 in the same auction from a fan desperate to have dinner with her.

Hollywood legend Larry Hagman wants his friends to eat him when he dies. The 70-year-old actor, who played oil baron J.R. Ewing in the hit soap Dallas, wants to be fed through a wood chipper, spread over a wheat field, then have a cake baked from the crop for his pals to munch on. Hagman, who lives on a 45-acre estate on a California mountain, says, "Cremation's all very well, but it uses an awful lot of energy. Burying someone in a steel casket doesn't do any good. I want to return to the earth as soon as possible."

Wayne's World star Dana Carvey has had to undergo five open heart surgeries to regain his health after suffering a blocked artery. The wacky star first experienced a pain in his chest in 1987 and after a visit to the doctor was discovered to have the life- threatening condition. But following the surgery, Dana says he's never felt better, beaming, "I feel wonderful. I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been in. I am so lucky and so blessed, I had the world's best cardiologist. My family prayed with me, my mother prayed and we all came out shining."

Keanu Reeves is helping his late fiance Jennifer Syme's mother to fight her legal battles. He has remained close to Jennifer's mom Maria ever since the young beauty was killed in a car accident earlier this year. And Reeves is now lending a hand to aid Maria in a legal argument involving her upstairs neighbour. According to court records, Maria is seeking a restraining order against a woman with whom she's been involved in screaming matches. A friend of the bereaved parent says, "Keanu has been paying Maria's legal bills. He wants to make sure that the woman who could have been his mother-in-law lives in peace. They're still very tight."

Actress Christina Applegate is already planning on adding children to her new family, just a week after getting married. The blonde star married her 32-year-old husband Johnathon Schaech in Palm Springs, California at the weekend. And according to friends, the Married With Children actress is already planning to live up to her the title of her famous sitcom. A pal says, "Christina told me, 'This is like a fairy tale, a dream come true. The only thing that will make it even better is when Jonathan and I start having kids together. We're going to start working on that next'."

Robbie Coltrane found it incredibly difficult to develop an authentic Dublin, Ireland accent for his new Irish movie On The Nose. The Scottish-born star had to slave for ages to capture the tough working-class dialect, and even spoke it in his spare time. He says, "I really wanted to get it good enough for a Dublin audience to watch it and be convinced. It's professional pride as well. I was on a set full of Dublin people and I asked them to keep an eye on what I was saying. It's not just the accent, it's the tone of what you're saying as well." Coltrane made the movie, which co-stars Dan Aykroyd, on location in the city late last year. He plays a porter in a medical college who develops a unique way of getting sure bets on horses.

Acting legend Albert Finney reckons accents aren't so important in the world of movies. The 65-year-old actor is renowned for his mastery of accents. But he doesn't believe it's too much of a problem for contemporaries like Sean Connery or Michael Caine that they've never been able to shake off their natural tones. He says, "One of the requisites of being a movie star is that you give them what you want of you. In the old days you wouldn't have asked John Wayne, even when he was playing a Manchurian chief, to have any accent other than his own because it would have disappointed his legions of followers. If an actor says to a woman 'I love you', you have to believe him. It's a question of belief, not of accent."