Actress Julia Roberts knows who she wants to present this year's Best Actor Oscar to - Denzel Washington. Julia, who picked up the Academy Award for her role in Erin Brockovich last year, is gearing up to present the golden statuette to either Denzel, Russell Crowe, Sean Penn, Will Smith or Tom Wilkinson next month. Julia describes Denzel, who is nominated for Training Day, as, "the best actor of his generation." She enthuses, "He should be on his third Oscar by now, and that might not be enough. I cannot absorb living in a world where I have an Oscar for best actress and Denzel doesn't have one for best actor." Julia starred with Denzel in the 1993 thriller The Pelican Brief.

Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys star Kevin Smith has died from head injuries after a fall in China. The 38-year-old martial arts star, who was voted New Zealand's Sexiest Man at Christmas, was pronounced dead upon arrival at a hospital in Beijing last week. Smith, who played Ares, God Of War on both Xena and Hercules, leaves behind a wife and three sons. He was scheduled to start filming an action movie with Bruce Willis next month.

Sean Penn thought he faced certain death when a crazed gunman took him hostage at gunpoint, using him as a human shield as he dragged him out of a police station in 1998. He pleaded, "Don't shoot! It's all right, man. Calm down." When the gunman finally pushed Penn out the door, the terrified star was cruelly shot - not with a pistol, but by a camera wielded by practical joker Woody Harrelson, his co-star in The Thin Red Line - revealing the episode was a cruel hoax. Studio boss Mike Medavoy writes in behind-the-scenes book, You're Only As Good As Your Next One, "Woody snapped a picture of Sean Penn scared stiff." But Medavoy notes that Penn got the last laugh when he asked Harrelson to go to a party with him. After driving 40 miles (64 kilometres) into the rustic outback of Australia, where their movie was being filmed, Penn pretended to get stuck and Harrelson got out to push. Medavoy says, "Sean slammed it into four-wheel drive and literally left Woody in the dust, stranded, in the middle of the night, with no food, no water and no way home except on foot. Woody was eventually picked up by an extra on his way to work."

Oscar-nominated actress Halle Berry is begging husband Eric Benet to include her in his acting career decisions - so he can avoid flops like Glitter. Berry admits she was disappointed when singer/songwriter Benet didn't ask for her advice while he was preparing for his movie debut opposite Mariah Carey - and she is convinced she would have spotted the film was a flop. She says, "I wanted to help him in some way because he's so strong for me. I include him so much in my decision-making and my career and I felt a little crushed when he didn't ask for advice. I realised, after the fact, just like I don't like to sing in front of him, he didn't want to act in front of me. I told him, 'Next time let me help you decide what movies to do.'"

Cameron Diaz won't have to spend a fortune on a dream home for her wacky boyfriend Jared Leto - he wants them to live in a cave. The reclusive Leto admits he has started to give up eating out because he prefers to stay away from crowds, and he'd happily give up his home comforts tomorrow if he could find a perfect cave. He says, "I would prefer living in a cave, with a door. Maybe a giant Hobbit cave, with furry rugs. Something really cozy, with a fireplace - something you could stay in for six to 15 months at a time." Leto also has some strange ideas about his funeral, insisting it will be a cheap, low-key affair in his favorite forest. He adds, "I want to be taken into the middle of the forest and have a hole dug in the fresh dirt and have my naked, freshly dead corpse tossed into the ground with a light layer of dirt spread over it. The animals could come and just kind of gnaw away at me."

Winona Ryder is fuming at an Los Angeles store profiting from her alleged shoplifting incident by selling Winona-themed merchandise. Ryder was arrested at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills in December after being accused of stealing $4,800 of clothing. The Y Que store in the exclusive Silverlake district made thousands of dollars from sales of t-shirts and stickers proclaiming "Free Winona." And when the pretty actress, currently free on bail, found out, she stormed to the store and demanded the entrepreneur quit immediately.

Hollywood hunk George Clooney is so confident of Sam Rockwell's acting ability - he's tipped the young star for Oscar glory. Clooney directs Rockwell in his directional debut Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind alongside Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore, which is set to hit cinema screens later this year. Californian Rockwell plays game-show host Chuck Barris in the biopic. Clooney enthuses, "Sam is so good at playing Chuck, and it is that good a role that he could get an Oscar nomination for it."

Last year's Best Actor Oscar winner Russell Crowe has issued kind advice to this year's Academy Awards recipients - take your time and relax. Crowe, who is nominated in the same category this year for his performance in A Beautiful Mind, says walking up to the stage to accept an Oscar is like "floating" - so it's very important to "stay calm". He says, "It does feel like you can float up there, but my advice would be just use the stairs and stay calm, because in that adrenalized situation a second is a lot longer than you think it is." And Crowe hopes his kindly words will prevent those lucky enough to read their acceptance speech forgetting to thank one of their nearest and dearest. "Some people tend to rush through what they were going to say," he says. "But these things don't come around very often, so just take a deep breath and savor it and make sure you are not backstage later kicking yourself for forgetting somebody you wanted to talk about."

Security is so tight at the Winter Olympics even Robert Redford got thoroughly searched - as the security guard told him how much he enjoyed his last movie! The veteran big screen star, who appeared in Downhill Racer as a olympic skier, visited Deer Valley, near to the olympic venue of Salt Lake City, to ski - but encountered the strict security measures brought in following last year's terrorist activity. Eye witness Jerry Warren, who is Redford's mountain manager at his Sundance ranch, says, "He was very gracious about it, and even thanked them for searching him. One of the security guards even said he had really enjoyed Robert's latest film, Spy Game - so identification obviously wasn't an issue!"

British actor Gary Oldman's newfound single life has left him with just a little too much space - he's sold his plush Hollywood Hills home for a smaller property in Los Angeles. Oldman and his estranged wife Donya Florentino, who filed for divorce last year after four years of marriage, owned the home for around five years, and spent three years refurbishing it. The large three-storey Mediterranean-style house has four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms, and boasts park-like grounds with a pool, a two-story entry and a living room with a fireplace and beamed ceilings.