Actress Natalie Portman is known for her mostly good taste in roles (although the less said about Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, the better), especially compared when other starlets in her peer group. So, how does she decide what kind of parts she wants to play? She told the Daily Mail:

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do comedy. It’s just that I would only get offered girlfriend parts in guy comedies, which aren’t exciting to me, or those offensive roles in romantic comedies where the woman has to have a job in fashion so that she can have nice clothes, and her goal is always marriage. I’m more interested in finding characters that make me laugh.

Well, she's open to doing comedies, so that's great. However, as the most notable Jewish actress in her generation (and possibly in all of Hollywood), what does she think about playing Jewish characters? In New York, I Love You she played a Hasidic bride. But that role is the exception, not the rule:

I’ve always tried to stay away from playing Jews. I get like 20 Holocaust scripts a month, but I hate the genre.

Is the problem here that Natalie doesn't like Holocaust movies, or that the only Jewish characters in most mainstream films are connected to the Holocaust? Something to ponder.

Also, this must mean Natalie's dislike of playing Jews must not extend to being Anne Frank on Broadway.

Soap operas have never been considered the most elite medium in our crowded cultural landscape. Because they air during the day and are targeted toward women, they're dismissed as fluffy, melodramatic, and unrealistic. All of those things are often true, but soaps-at-night-with-younger-casts like Gossip Girl and The OC are allowed to become pop-culture touchstones instead of being dismissed as irrelevant.

There are many reasons given for why soap operas are becoming less successful and less popular - the OJ Simpson trial, which ate up many hours of daytime TV programming and caused many soaps to be suspended or air at different, less favorable hours, is a popular blame target. In addition, many blame soaps' decreasing ratings to be the result of more women entering the workforce, which makes them less likely to be home during the day. My own theory? It has to do with soaps being largely unsuccessful at adapting to a culture which is less interested in serial drama. In the age of internet spoilers and fast-paced action-driven shows like 24, what incentive is there to tune into a show where storylines last for years?

Furthermore, soaps are expensive to produce, not only compared to other scripted shows but compared to game shows and reality programs, which are more likely to air during the day and compete against soaps. In order to keep multiple plots going on at once, soap canvases are crowded, and veteran actors work out deals that keep them well-paid even when they're not getting a lot of screentime - imagine a House with half a dozen Hugh Lauries. Because of soaps' longevity, actors - and their characters - can stick around for decades. Since soaps juggle multiple story arcs at once, they not only require a full stable of actors but large crews and a variety of sets. When Harrison Ford was once asked to name an actor he admired, and he said 'soap opera actors,' because they have to memorize huge chunks of dialogue in short periods. Soaps air five days a week, year round, and never show reruns. (If you're interested in catching old episodes, your best bet is the ABC-controlled SoapNET network, which shows the occasional vintage soap but is more interested in creating new soaplike series, such as Southern Belles: Louisville.)

In April of this year, CBS announced that it was cancelling Guiding Light, the longest-running TV show in history, which started as a radio program in 1937 and made the move to television in 1952. The show, which regularly came in close to or at the bottom of the ratings, had been in danger for some time. Executive producer Ellen Wheeler (who used to star in soaps, winning a Daytime Emmy for her work on Another World) had cut the show's costs as much as possible, moving the New York City-based show out to rural New Jersey to save money on set construction and space rental. Unfortunately, the ploy didn't work, and Guiding Light's final episode will air on September 18.

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Hollywood is taking an important break from Transformers sequels and the Footloose remake to create possibly the most important film of our era: The Untitled Bernie Madoff Project.

TV tabloid show "The Insider" attended an audition, where filmmakers were casting for the lead role. The part went to Paul Cohen, 64, of Jersey City, NJ. Cohen has never acted before, but he's not about to let his lack of experience hold him back.

Here's some footage from the casting:

Now that they've found their Bernie, who will they hire to play Ruth Madoff? Or Elie Wiesel? I'll take casting suggestions in the comments.

I was a child of the '80s in name only. I never watched Blossom when it first came out. I was aware of it only as - and, the few times that I did, it both intrigued me and turned me off: some too-cool kid who was two or three years older than me (at the time, a vast gap) who wore wild vintage-store outfits, used unnecessarily long vocabulary, and had a penchant for confessional D.I.Y. films about 2 decades before YouTube was even conceived of....It made me feel more than a little protective. This was my subculture they were stealing. She couldn't possibly be doing it right.

Little did I know, for its time - and even for ours - Blossom was completely transcendent. In the pilot episode, The Cosby Show's Phylicia Rashad, wearing a retro-'50s polka-dot dress, drew a map of the human ovaries on a sheet cake with a tube of icing in order to explain to 14-year-old Blossom Russo how her period worked. Subsequent episodes made pretty profound statements on puberty, body image, premarital sex and divorce and parental responsibility. The endings were always sugar-coated, but the TV show itself (which has just been released on DVD) was meaty and unafraid in ways that make current sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother and The Office feel positively sanitized.

As much of a travesty as grouping Blossom together with tepid '80s sitcoms such as Full House might be, mentioning the Mayim Bialik's name together with the name of the television show might be an even more audacious generalization.

In the decades since she stopped playing Blossom Russo, Bialik has not sat still. She's earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience and has undertaken cutting-edge studies at UCLA as one of the top researchers of Prader-Willi Syndrome in the field. (Read more about the disorder here, or sift through Bialik's blog to find out about her work.) She's also testing the waters of going back into acting, with recent appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bones. And she's also in the middle of another big revival: she's experimenting with being an observant Jew.

What first motivated you to start researching the causes of Prader-Willi Syndrome? Are you still?

I always had an interest in working with kids with special needs, and in the neuroscience department at UCLA, you generally meet a lot of professors and then drop into a project that suits you. There's been a lot of genetic research on Prader-Willi, and there's been a lot of behavioral research, but there isn't a lot of research combining the two..and that's what I thought I could bring to it.

I got my doctorate last year, so my research was my thesis. Since then, I've done some writing for organizations that raise money for Prader-Willi research. In the meantime, I've started acting again, and we just had our second child, so I've had my hands pretty full, taking care of him and doing auditions.

Have you been auditioning a lot?

Yes, actually! Far more than I thought I would be. I'm auditioning for all sorts of things. I'm actually filming an episode of Bones tomorrow. I've auditioned for comedy, drama, movies -- anything they send my way.

Is it mostly one way or the other -- dramatic roles, films, or ironic stuff? Are you being selective about which roles you take?

Not really. I don't think I can afford to be selective. I'm just seeing what's out there, and whatever I do get, like Bones, is great practice to get into the swing of things again.

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Moran Atias is unstoppable. The Israeli actress/model/TV host is fluent in three languages and was on the shortlist to be a Bond girl. Now, she's starring on the Starz network's first original scripted series, a serialized version of the Oscar-winning film Crash. Somewhere in her Superwoman-like, globetrotting existence, she found some time to chat with Jewcy.

You can watch Crash on Starz and Starz On Demand. Check www.starz.com/crash for showtimes.

Had you seen the movie Crash before getting cast in the show? Were you a fan?

I saw the movie on a plane. I travel a lot so I see a lot of movies when I travel, most of my flights are long, like 15 hours, you can watch a lot of movies. I saw Crash on the plane and was so moved by it… it made me feel that I had to not only think something, but to do something about it, not just believe in a religion or philosophy but to actually enjoy what you believe in. When you see a movie like that, as an actress or film creator or technician, we all want to be part of a greater message, and Crash was a great example of that. I thought to myself, “this is the genre I want to be part of.”

Does that notion – of not just believing in a religion but enjoying what you believe in – apply to Judaism?

There are so many religions that have a set of values and behavior codes that represent humanity’s rights, and that gives us a way to make our civilization. There’s a difference between practice and theory. I can read a lot of books about acting but until I get on a stage and do the work then I am not really doing it. You see a difference in people who read books about acting and people who have been trained to act.

Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up in Haifa? When did you decide to become an actress?

Growing up in Haifa was wonderful. You don’t have to call your classmate to schedule a play date, it’s very casual and very welcoming. I had fantastic time during high school, and the first time I realized I wanted to do this job was just after taking part in a class. That was when I realized [acting] was something I wanted to do – not only was the result of the work something I wanted, it was the process that made me happy. You spend a lot of the time in the process. In any profession you should enjoy the process.

There is a lot of overlap between Israeli and American TV. For example, the US series “In Treatment” began as an Israeli program. And you host the Israeli version of “Deal or No Deal.” Why do you think these two countries share so much TV with each other?

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Here's Gwyneth Paltrow discussing her physical "transformation" in "The Good Night":

...as Dora, the protagonist’s waking-life girlfriend, Gwyneth is barely recognizable: pale, with a cape of dense brown hair, bundled in shapeless cardigans. “It was me physicalizing my New York Jewish half,” jokes Gwyneth. (Her rep as a shiksa goddess notwithstanding, the actress is in fact, as a friend likes to call her, “Gwyneth Paltrow, the descendant of ancient rabbis.”)

I won't get into the absurdity of an actress sans eyeliner being labeled "barely recognizable." And "descendant of ancient rabbis" sounds a lil' nebulous. I mean, shit: aren't we all? But whatever. She's clearly Jewish enough for Hitler, and that, friends, means she's Jewish enough for me.

Question is, does dressing down and attaining moderate fugliness make one feel more Jewish? Or just look more Jewish? I suppose it's a method issue.