People: Oct. 24, 2005

PINTER'S PROGRESS

Having written plays with cheery names like The Birthday Party and The Lover that are in fact the opposite of cheery, HAROLD PINTER, 75, could be thought of as a bit of a downer. But there was nothing grim about his reaction to the news that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The playwright told reporters he was "bowled over" by the $1.3 million award. He didn't mean it literally; the wound on his head came from a recent fall. Here's hoping we'll finally get a Pinteresque award-acceptance speech. Nothing says elation like tense silence and nameless menace.

Q&A ROSIE PEREZ

In New York City this month, Rosie Perez will act in a play that's written and produced in 24 hours, to raise funds for the charity Working Playground.

Rosie, where have you been?

In the theater. It made me fearless. Before I was, like, "Oh, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do this," and I thought it was because I had integrity. But now I realize it was fear.

Describe your preshow rituals.

I have to go to the bathroom, sit on the bowl and sing show tunes.

Twice you were discovered in nightclubs. Did you ever think how life would be different if you were a homebody?

Every day. I would have been a marine biologist. But I still dance. In my home. And in underground clubs where you don't have to dress up. I like to go in sneakers.

How has show business changed for Latin actors since you were in Do the Right Thing?

They're letting more of us in, but we're really not allowed to be too ethnic. If we are being ethnic, it's this idealized ethnicity being portrayed.

You just directed a documentary on the political relationship between the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Did you include your arrest for protesting bombs on Vieques?

Yup. We're a peaceful, loving people, until you push a Puerto Rican against a wall. Then it's hold up, it's on. The Vieques protest personified that. I felt a part of things.

What was your old Fly Girl, Jennifer Lopez, like before she became J. Lo?

She was a very, very ambitious girl when she was at In Living Color, and I think she got everything she wanted.

As a former choreographer, rate Britney Spears' hip-hop dancing.

It's a grave insult to hip-hop to say what Britney Spears does is hip-hop. You can learn steps, but you cannot learn how to boogie.

RUSHING TO BE ONE OF THE GUYS

RUSH LIMBAUGH believes he belongs on a new list of men's men even more than its current occupants Bono, Bill Clinton and George Clooney. The authors of the marketing book The Future of Men have coined a new buzz word for males who embrace their masculinity--"übersexuals"--and have compiled a list of the world's best examples of these macho specimens. "Understanding the finer things, confident, rather go out with the guys for dinner, doesn't care what people think? Man, that's me," Limbaugh said on his radio talk show. "This is what men were before feminism came along and neutered them!" Somehow we suspect a real man's man wouldn't have to raise his hand to join the club, but then the nation's übersexuals are unavailable for comment on Limbaugh until the end of the baseball play-offs.

HIS AGENT WAS THE SECRETIVE ONE