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Slow Daddy Considering what an enormous celebrity he is, P. Diddy (aka Puff Daddy and Sean Combs) could have jumped into a number of splashy big-budget films, but he waited for a gem. Now, after finding one with Monster's Ball, he's sticking to his plan. Let's face it, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs isn't exactly the portrait of the patient, self-analytical artist who really struggles to produce authentic, emotionally resonant work. Having created the impression of a live-it-up, high-maintenance, scene-loving party boy with the phalanx of bodyguards and wads of disposable income, Combs has been called arrogant quite a few times and talent-free many others. But with Combs, things have just never been entirely as they seem. Born in Harlem but raised in Mt. Vernon, New York, by his mother after his cabdriver father was shot dead, he graduated from the prestigious Mount St. Michael Academy in the Bronx and went on to Howard University. Leaving college after a year to pursue a career in music, he made a name for himself at 19 when he became the youngest executive in the music business as vice president of A&R for Uptown Records. In the '90s, Combs started his own label, Bad Boy Entertainment, managed such talents as Mary J. Blige and the Notorious B.I.G. to staggering success, generated multi-platinum sales of his own as a solo artist (his debut CD, No Way Out, spent 28 weeks on the charts), opened soul food restaurants in New York and Atlanta, and launched an eponymous clothing line that generates nearly $100 million in sales every year. For the entire article on P. Diddy (aka Puff Daddy and Sean Combs) pick up the July issue of Movieline. |
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But unlike many headline-grabbing actresses, Jolie is even more interesting on-screen than off. The dangerously screwed-up beauties she has played in George Wallace, Gia, Playing by Heart, Pushing Tin and Girl, Interrupted have all been tangible, believable creations. In her first big-budget thriller, The Bone Collector, she easily matched the skill and intensity of Denzel Washington. She's likely to stun audiences as the take-no-prisoners action heroine Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, a fantasy adventure adap from the video game by director Simon West (see story on p. 54). And who isn't looking forward to watching her later this summer when she plays the sex-obsessed femme fatale who enraptures Antonio Banderas in Original Sin? When Angelina Jolie greets me for this interview, she strikes me as someone fully capable of doing all that she has done offscreen and all that she's expected to do on-screen as Lara Croft. She's dressed in a black T-shirt and black leather jacket, and she looks like she might throw a mean right if provoked. "Call me Angie," she says, reaching out to shake my hand. I can tell she is indeed something like her father--intense, focused. And I have little doubt that, like her father, she'll be original in her thinking. For Lawrence Grobel's interview pick up the June issus of Movieline. PAGE 1 | 2 |