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Musician Michael Bublé, left, and his girlfriend, actress Emily Blunt, were spotted in town last week.
Actress Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) was spotted in town with musician-boyfriend Michael Bublé early last week. The U.K.-born actress was supporting Bublé at his album release party, and the couple lunched at Provence Mediterranean Grill. Blunt was in town in February and March of last year shooting the thriller, Wind Chill, about two college students whose vehicle breaks down on a deserted stretch of road, whereupon the ghosts of people who have died there begin to prey on them. Wind Chill hits theatres toward the end of this month.
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Bionic Woman Michelle Ryan
BIONIC RYAN: Several Vancouverties in the Westbrook area of UBC during the evening of April 10 had an opportunity to watch a truck violently t-bone a car — all part of the action, of course, in this case for the Sci-Fi Channel pilot, The Bionic Woman. What made this particular sequence noteworthy was that it is allegedly the catastrophic crash that leads Jamie Sommers — played by Michelle Ryan (another U.K.-born actress) — to become bionic. As an interesting aside, actress Katie Sackhoff, who plays Starbuck in the Vancouver-shot Sci-Fi series Battlestar Galactica, guest stars in the pilot as an evil ‘bionic’ woman and nemesis to Sommers.
ROCKETING TO STARDOM: While we’re on the subject of Sci-Fi Channel — which truly seems to have made Vancouver its new home — Canadian-born actor Eric Johnson, perhaps best known to Smallville fans for portraying Whitney Fordman in 22 episodes of the CW series between 2001 and 2004, has landed the title role in the cable network’s upcoming series, Flash Gordon. Twenty-two episodes of the series have been ordered, with lensing set to begin in Vancouver on May 1.
SARSGAARD AND HOPPER BEHAVE LIKE ‘ANIMALS’: Lakeshore Entertainment has added Peter Sarsgaard, Dennis Hopper and Deborah Harry to the cast of Elegy, the feature adaptation of Philip Roth’s novella, Dying Animal, which begins shooting here next month. The trio joins the previously announced Penelope Cruz, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson. Directed by Isabel Coixet (The Secret Life Of Words), the story was adapted by noted Hollywood director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), and concerns a grad student, portrayed by Cruz, who gets tangled up in an erotic affair with her professor, played by Kingsley, then returns years later with a revelation.
Robert Falconer is a Senior Editor at HollywoodNorthReport.com
