THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

It's probably just the thing that Mischa Barton wanted for Chrismukkah: a chance to stretch her acting wings with a movie role that has nothing to do with her media-frenzied life as a star of The O.C. And if negotiations continue to go her way, audiences will get a chance to see the teenage actor starring in a new film adaptation of The Decameron ( the first since legendary gay director Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1971 version ) . One of the classics of world literature, Giovanni Boccaccio's story of a group of 10 young Florentines escaping the Black Plague in the 1300s and telling each other 100 stories to pass the time remains as entertaining and bawdy—and often pretty queer—today as it did then. And with nine more young, pretty actors needed to fill in the cast, it could all turn out to be more like a 14th-century O.C. than anyone could have imagined. [ Promos for the next few episodes of O.C. do have a tantalizing scene of Barton grabbing a girl's hand. Barton is not afraid of the lesbian angle, having starred in Lost & Delirious with Piper Perabo. ]

Sarsgaard's Active Duty

Good thing military-themed movies aren't playing the 'don't ask, don't tell' game, or Jarhead, the upcoming Desert Storm drama from director Sam Mendes ( American Beauty ) , would be short a couple of key cast members. The newest recruit to enlist in the cast is Peter Sarsgaard, a young actor whose career so far has been steeped in queer-themed indie films like Boys Don't Cry, Kinsey —in which his bisexual character beds both Liam Neeson and Laura Linney—and the upcoming Craig Lucas film, The Dying Gaul, in which he plays gay. And Jake Gyllenhaal, who just learned what it's like to make out with Heath Ledger onscreen in the upcoming Brokeback Mountain, co-stars. Who says military life and queerness don't mix?

Ruffalo Yells for Stella

Audiences can't seem to get enough of that troubled gay playwright Tennessee Williams. His plays are constantly in production somewhere, and every actor, male and female, wants a chance to play the roles the man wrote. So it's no surprise that yet another revival of A Streetcar Named Desire is in the works. This time out, Mark Ruffalo will play the brutish Stanley Kowalski and Natasha Richardson will take on Blanche Dubois. Previews begin in New York in March, running through June 19. And it's all going to take place at Studio 54, former home of the Cabaret revival, which seems appropriate in some discreetly old-school gay way.

From Small Sentence to Big Screen

When former Sex and the City writers Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo wrote the sentence, 'He's just not that into you,' little did they know how it would all turn out. That one line, which became an episode plot and then a best-selling tongue-in-cheek dating guide titled, yes, He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys, is now on its way to the big screen. New Line can take the credit for seeing the box-office potential in this comic premise, and the authors were forward-thinking enough to develop a plot line for a film before selling the book rights, one in which a female talk-show host becomes 'sort of' involved with a man who guests on her show. No cast is set yet, but any number of fresh-faced Hollywood ladies would shine in something like this. Romeo thinks the easily typecastable Kate Hudson could use a hit right about now. Just a thought.

DeepInsideHollywood@qsyndicate.com .