Frank Darabont Unleashes His Angry Side

Don't expect esteemed filmmaker Frank Darabont to make nice with his next movie. "This one's more angry than what I've done before," says the director, speaking of his adaptation of Stephen King's "The Mist" short story, in which Thomas Jane is expected to star.
 
Is the "Shawshank Redemption" and "Green Mile" filmmaker feeling angry these days?
 
"Yes," he replies. "I am very disappointed with mankind lately. Enough of this love of mankind. Everyone's in for a good scolding, with monsters."
 
"The Mist" marks the fulfillment of Darabont's longtime desire to make a down and dirty horror picture.
 
"To get my 'shoot fast and loose' legs under me, I did an episode of 'The Shield,'" he lets us know. "I had such a blast. I put aside everything I know about filmmaking, the whole Kubrick wannabe approach, and shook things up." The FX show returns early next year. Darabont has become a huge booster of star Michael Chiklis and the rest of the "Shield" team. And the TV job prepped him for the "breathless, 35-day" schedule he's planned on "The Mist."
 
Darabont's unforgettable adaptation of King's "The Green Mile," starring Tom Hanks, is being released this week in a deluxe DVD edition with plenty of bonus features. "I spent nine months on the director's commentary," he reveals. "I'm almost as obsessed about that as anything. You want those supplemental discs to be fantastic."
 
As for re-teaming with King, he says, "The process with Steve is pretty wonderful. I'll call or e-mail and say, 'I'd like to do this,' and he'll say, 'OK, go ahead.' It's a lovely trust. He never stops writing, you know. When he talked about retiring, I laughed in his face. I said, 'You're like the shark in "Jaws" -- designed to do a certain thing.'" Darabont adds, "Of course, if he really did want to retire, I'd support him completely."
 
PUTTING IN HER ALL:

Brazilian supermodel Ana Beatriz Barros isn't interested in branching into acting -- at least not yet. She tells us, "Every model wants to be an actress, but it's not in my plan. Right now, I'm dedicated to my modeling career. I got a lot of offers to do the movies and stuff, but for me, when I do something, I want to do good, not half. If I can't do it 100 percent, I don't want to do it."
 
Nonetheless, Ana Beatriz is going to get plenty of exposure Dec. 5 when she's seen on CBS in this year's "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show" -- which will once again showcase some of the world's most beautiful women parading around in fabulous lingerie, and this year also has some guy named Justin Timberlake singing.
 
PROUD HERITAGE:

"The Insider's" Victoria Recano, who cohosts The 14th Annual Diversity Awards with Adam Beach Sunday (11/19) at L.A.'s Century Plaza Hotel, says she agrees with Jamie Foxx about the inclusion of ethnic background information when it comes to matters of achievement. Foxx was criticized for referring to himself as a black actor rather than just as an actor when he won the Oscar for "Ray," and responded that with so many negative racial connotations in the media, it's nice, especially for young people, to have "something positive and stamp it with blackness." Says Recano, "I think he has a very good point, and I think everyone should be proud of their ethnic background and heritage."
 
The beautiful broadcasting personality's father is Hispanic Filipino, and her mother is of German-Hungarian ancestry. How did they ever get together? "In an elevator," says Victoria. "He's a doctor and she's a nurse, and his pickup line was, 'Do you like bowling and do you like Chinese food?' That was what they did every date for three years."
 
This year's Diversity honorees are NBC, "World Trade Center" director Michael Mann, actors Nick Cannon, Maria Bello, Paula Patton, Bai Ling, Michael Pena, and the series "Bones," "Criminal Minds," and "My Name is Earl."
 
WARMING TREND:

"Friday Night Lights" regular Connie Britton describes her upcoming indie film, "The Last Winter," as "an environmental ghost story. We all play Alaskan drillers up there on some big oil line. Some very strange things start happening, and the earth starts a comeuppance. It's an interesting and insightful story. The director, Larry Fessenden, is known for horror, but is also into the environment and was able to combine all of those interests."
 
She says one of her "Friday Night Lights'" co-stars, Zach Gilford, is also in "The Last Winter," which was shot in Iceland. "We were there from March through April. It was absolutely freezing, but by the time we left it was starting to thaw. We were watching global warming in effect … It was not supposed to melt as fast as it did, and we were trying to rush to get the shooting done."

(With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster)