Robert Wagner Looking to Get Back in Weekly TV Series Game

Robert Wagner, a TV mainstay through three decades with his "It Takes a Thief," "Switch" and "Hart to Hart" shows, is looking to get back into the weekly series game. This time, in a comedy. "I love the form," he says, "absolutely love it." He guest stars in the May 14-airing season finale of "Two and a Half Men," and just finished shooting an ABC comedy pilot in which he plays the head of a law firm surrounded by rival up-and-coming legal eagles including Scott Wolf, Ayda Field, Amanda Detmer and Ben Savage.

Robert Wagner Looking to Get Back in Weekly TV Series Game

"It was such a fun experience. I've done guestings, but I've never been involved in a pilot like this from the ground up, and with all these young actors. It was like an opening night," Wagner says of the prospective show from Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs ("What About Brian," "October Road," "Just Shoot Me!").

The "Two and a Half Men" episode pits him and former "Mannix" star Mike Connors against each other as rivals for the affections of Holland Taylor. Wagner's character is wealthy and dashing, but has a Viagra problem.

"You always wonder what it's going to be like, coming into such a tight group of people on an established show, but they couldn't have been nicer to me," Wagner recalls. "When I drove onto the lot, Jon Cryer happened to be outside, and said, 'Oh, we're so happy to have you! Park right there around the corner' -- such a nice welcome. It was terrific working with him, Charlie (Sheen) and Holland, and the character was so well written for me, I slipped into it and felt very comfortable with the chemistry."

SMALL TO BIG SCREEN AND BACK: With "One Tree Hill" a wrap for the season -- and possibly forever -- beautiful Sophia Bush aims to stretch her wings a bit. "I'm always looking to do something that's different. I don't want to do a movie where I'm playing the girl from the show. My goal for this hiatus is a small role with some great actors on a film that would allow me a little bit of personal time as well."

She tells us she's "in the midst of getting a project."

We've learned that project is the big screen "The Narrows," which is soon to go into production with Vincent D'Onofrio, Eddie Cahill and Roger Rees. It has Cahill as a New York University student and promising photographer -- whose father, D'Onofrio, wants him in the family business. Family as in mafia.

Bush's last film also provided her a changeup -- last year's remake of the horror flick "The Hitcher," which comes out on DVD Tuesday (5/1). "I definitely enjoy the suspense of this kind of film, although I always feel kind of traumatized after seeing one," she admits. "It was an amazing experience to make it, and everyone became quite close on the film. I actually just attended the producer's son's bar mitzvah."

As for that personal time she wants, "It's been a while" since she's had any, acknowledges Bush, whose short-lived marriage to costar Chad Michael Murray ended in 2005. Now she's looking forward to "hanging out with my parents and friends and going for walks with my dogs."

INSIDE INSIGHT: Veteran actress Virginia Madsen has been in the spotlight in recent years with projects including "Sideways" and "Firewall," but she says being famous was never one of her aspirations. "I knew that fame was fleeting and it would come and it would go, so I guess I was more interested in longevity than fame," notes Madsen, who along with her brother, Michael, has been in the business for over 20 years. "I was more into a career than a moment. I wasn't concerned with how well the movie did. I was more interested in the experience of making the film. That may or may not have been to the detriment of my career, but I just wanted to be an actor. I wasn't interested in all the rest of it." If only she could talk some sense into the rest of Hollywood.

SPORTING GOODS: Charles Dutton's "Racing for Time" movie for Lifetime has been tagged for an early July production start. The actor's starring in, and also directing the story of a correctional officer at a California Youth Authority girls' camp who gets the idea of crossing ethnic and gang barriers between the inmates by involving them in competitive relay racing.

There's an interesting assemblage of body doubles being put together for a soon-to-shoot ad campaign involving 3-D imagery. A casting notice has gone out for men with proportions and body mass mimicking those of Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter (6'3", 195 lbs.); basketball great Michael Jordan (6'6", 216 lbs.); hockey star Sidney Crosby (5'11", 200 lbs.); San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson (5'10", 221); and golf superstar Tiger Woods, (6'1", 185 lbs.). The look-alikes are being asked to don athletic clothing and gear and do action poses. That'll be something to brag about.

(With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster)