Sarah Ball Deserves Combat Pay

Photo Credit: Felicitari

Poor Sarah Ball. The 22-year-old Newsweek reporter was dispatched to Thailand to interview Jean-Claude Van Damme about his new movie, "JCVD," which is about...well...himself.

Next thing she knows, she's face to face with the "Muscles from Brussels" and he got super-creepy, super-quickly. (By the way, Herr Van Damme is on Wifey No. 5. No coincidence, I'm sure.).

Below is the transcript of the interview.
There's a monologue in the film about being a washed-up action star. Did you improvise that?
I like structure—like driving: go past the school on the street, stay on the right side, no hitting the car, go in right, you'll see a big church, stop and take a left, and you'll have it. By doing this I'm giving a structure of life, a path of light, and showing what happens between me and me, which is something very beautiful.

Beautiful? Why?
I really opened myself up in "JCVD." I peeled back the skin of the fruit, cut the pulp and then took that very hard seed. In this film I cut that hard seed, and inside that seed was a kind of liquid cream substance of the man I am, or the woman you are.

OK —
It was like being naked—I would love to be naked in front of you.

Well, I —
Not being naked being naked. I say such things in Hong Kong and they thought I was being a crazy Frenchman. Being naked of protection.


So you've no regrets at all?
Believe me—I've done very good stuff and very crazy stuff, and I don't regret the crazy stuff. So are you in New York?

Yes, I am.
And are you 27, or 32?


I'm 22.
Oh, f–––. That is very young. Will you come to the premiere?

I don't know. When is it?
I don't know. You will wear all black, a black dress and high heels?

Uh —
You can come find me, I will be the one with the very broad shoulders, dark hair and a simple suit. We can have some champagne, you and me.

William Shatner talks about Star Trek and his memoir

William Shatner is best known as Captain James Tiberius Cook on Star Trek - but the Canadian actor wants people to know that there is more to him than that.

That's why he has written several memoirs and has a new one out called "Till Now," which is about his rise from a Canadian boy with a modest childhood to his current role, a self-spoofing Priceline.com spokesman.

Shatner spoke to Brian Braiker of Newsweek about the new Star Trek movie and a number of other topics.

He said that he has not been approached by J.J. Abrams, who is doing the bigscreen remake of Star Trek. "I know nothing," he said about the movie. "I had a meeting a couple times with J.J. Abrams, who actually came down one time to where we shoot "Boston Legal" to visit with me—and I don't know what it was about. He never called back, and I'm not in the movie. I'm disappointed."

He added that he is a little disappointed that he won't be in the movie.

"I would have liked to have been in the revival of Star Trek," he said. "More than that I'm fascinated by the business decision of not including that popular character and the actor who has a lot of popularity still, as opposed to anybody else in the cast who's either unknown or not in the public eye particularly."

The entire interview is available here.