Hollywood starlet Kirsten Dunst reportedly had a fling with an unknown French actor shortly after her split with The Day After Tomorrow heart- throb Jake Gyllenhaal. Friends of the actress claim Dunst's Parisian romance occurred during the European press tour for Spider-Man 2 earlier this month. The brief affair was uneventful, as Dunst, 22, is now single again and is back in America filming Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown in Kentucky alongside Orlando Bloom and Susan Sarandon, reports the Daily Dish website.

Ewan McGregor recently encountered a frightening situation as he neared the end of his marathon motorcycle trek - he got stuck in a muddy river. The Moulin Rouge star, who embarked on the 20,000 mile global journey with friend Charlie Boorman on April 14, was biking through Mongolia when the scary incident happened. McGregor writes on website Ridernews.Net, "It was so rainy and muddy that we couldn't get anywhere, we just kept getting stuck and falling off. The worst bit of the whole trip so far though, was when I fell off in a river. It was what I was dreading the most. I had nightmares of baling out and filling the engine with water and stranding us in the middle of nowhere. The moment finally happened when I crossed a river and hit a massive boulder hidden under water. Luckily, as the bike began to fall I hit the kill switch, stopping the engine before it sucked in water. When we dragged it out of the river, it was fine." The epic motorbike journey is being filmed for a seven-part documentary series, Long Way Round, and ends in New York later this week.

R&B beauty Brandy is in hiding after her ex-lover Robert Smith revealed they were never married. The singer, 25, shocked her fans in February 2002 when she announced she had "secretly" wed the record producer the previous summer and their baby daughter Sy'rai was born in June. But last week Smith told a New York radio station the couple were never married and concocted the wedding story to protect her image after she fell pregnant. Furious Brandy hasn't denied the story, but fumed in a statement, "I'm deeply hurt and shocked by the things that Robert has been saying. We had a spiritual union." Since Smith's public declaration, Brandy has cancelled a string of interviews in New York to promote her new album Afrodisiac and flown to Los Angeles.

Controversial director Michael Moore is constantly being ordered to lose weight - by American presidential candidate Ralph Nader. The independent politician, who is a distant third behind George W Bush and John Kerry in the race for The White House, has been pressuring the Fahrenheit 9/11 film-maker to diet ever since they became firm friends when Moore supported Nader's campaign four years ago. Nader tells website Pagesix.Com, "I've been at him for years, saying, 'You've got to lose weight.' Now he's doubled. Private exhortations aren't working. It's extremely serious. He's over 300 pounds. He's like a giant beach ball."

British actress Saffron Burrows has been injured in a car crash while shooting a new movie in New Zealand. The 31-year-old Troy star hit a tree while driving to her hotel from the set of Perfect Creature. She was rushed to hospital, but released after being treated for minor injuries. A source says, "She has taken some time off. She's badly shaken and has whiplash injuries but she will be ok to finish the film." Burrows stars alongside Dougray Scott in the horror film, which will be released next year.

Comic-turned-chat show host Ellen DeGeneres is considering dragging Brittany Murphy and her mother onto her hit program to give them a lie detector test about the actress' early speech skills. Guests like Sharon Stone and Christina Ricci have poured scorn on Murphy's claims that she could talk at four-months-old, and now DeGeneres is keen to help the actress prove she's not lying. Former Mensa student Stone, who is one of the cleverest actresses in Hollywood, insists Murphy is either talking about "baby talk" or she has a good imagination. The Basic Instinct beauty recently suggested on DeGeneres' show, "That's why she's an actress - because she has an imagination." But Ellen wants to give Murphy the chance to back her claims up: "We're gonna have her and her mother on and hook them up to lie detector tests."

Joaquin Phoenix fears his portrayal of Johnny Cash in biopic Walk The Line will be panned - because he feels "inadequate" as the country legend. The Signs actor has even been called upon to perform as Cash for the film, and he admits he's terrified of upsetting the late star's family with his latest role. He says, "My singing is shameful. For Walk the Line, I think we put in probably three-and-a-half months prepping for that film and I've never felt so inadequate in my life. It's been quite a journey. I have a great deal of respect for singers and it's incredibly vulnerable to go out there in front of a lot of people and sing. I also have great respect for people that lip-sync while they're singing 'cause it's very difficult to do. We're doing both - live singing and playing, and some to playback. I'm a terrible judge of myself in how it's going. We're doing ten concerts and it's terrifying." Phoenix admits he's so nervous when he performs as Cash he actually has out- of-body experiences. He explains, "I lose myself. At some point I just kind of come to, and the day's over, and they say, 'You're off,' and I go, 'Oh, OK.' I really have no concept of what happens from doing the set to going home."

Hollywood beauty Keira Knightley refuses to consider herself a real actress - because she thinks she has a long way to go before she's at the top of her profession. The King Arthur star views her current acting work as part of a learning curve, and has yet to feel comfortable with her on-screen performances. Knightley, 19, comments, "I don't think I can call myself an actress yet. I just don't think my skill level if that high. I hope that with every job it gets better. But until I'm good, I can say I'm trying to be an actor, but I don't think I've completely made it." And Knightley didn't find her role as Guinevere in the Camelot epic tested her thespian abilities. She says, "I had to work out physically quite a bit, but pretty much it's scream a lot and enjoy being painted blue."

Julia Stiles has a unique method of tackling the demands of being both a successful actress and a college student - she defers semesters at college in order to work on her films. The Save The Last Dance star, currently appearing onstage in London, makes movies at the expense of her higher education because there's "no rush". The 23-year-old explains, "I get impatient and think I have to graduate now. But I can defer for as long as I want and still get my degree." Stiles, a student at New York's Columbia University, adds, "I'm going to school for myself, to learn, so why rush it? I like stepping back from work and having the time to read and listen to what lecturers have to say."

Sex And The City star Kim Cattrall is making a family film in Toronto, Canada, as "a valentine" to her young nieces and nephews. The actress, who turned down the chance to return as man-eater Samantha Jones in a Sex and the City movie, insists she wanted to do something different instead - and signed up to play an ice skating coach in new film Ice Princess. She says, "I'm spending the summer inside a skating rink, all bundled up from neck to toes, no man in sight. My niece and nephew are young and haven't been able to see my work in the past six years. This is a valentine to them."