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AN STYLE='font-size: 100%; color: #990000; font-weight: bold; '>Sotto Voce Minnie
She may play a nightmare diva in December's Phantom of the Opera movie, but busy Brit MINNIE DRIVER is grounded enough to know her budding music career hasn't prepared her to deliver pop arias. Driver, whose first album, a "super-lo-fi, Cowboy Junkies kind of thing," is due in October, doesn't sing in the film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. "It would have been ridiculously arrogant to believe I could pull it off without a lifetime of training," says the Good Will Hunting star, who appears with Gerard Butler as the Phantom. Besides, the role of Carlotta provides other outlets for Driver's pipes. "I do a lot of babbling and screaming in Italian," she says. "I enjoyed that quite a bit."

Screening Soon in Sacramento
Unfortunately for California's 38th Governor, his next movie role can't be recalled. In this month's Around the World in 80 Days, an adaptation of the Jules Verne novel starring Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER has a very unstatesmanlike cameo as a libidinous Turkish prince. Filmed last July — before he had a really, really big state to run — Schwarzenegger's scenes won't help him shed his Governor Groper image. In the movie's trailer, the bewigged action hero entreats a comely blond to become his seventh wife: "One for each day of the week. Do Tuesdays work for you?" The Governor's office declined to comment on his role in the film. California's crucial polygamist vote, though, seems a lock.

Road Tripp
There was a time when lots of people wished LINDA TRIPP would leave the country. Now that she's got a new do and a new beau, Monica Lewinsky's indiscreet confessor plans to take a posse with her. Tripp and her German fiance, who run a boutique together in Virginia, are leading tours of Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. "It's a great opportunity for all my detractors to come along," jokes Tripp. Sounds fun. Just watch what you gossip about on the tour bus.