Ledger Pop Journal - Celebrity News & Sports

D'oh! Joe Mantegna, the voice of mob boss Fat Tony on 'The Simpsons,' says even he doesn't know where the highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of the hit animated series will take America's favorite dysfunctional 'toon family. "They've been so secretive about it, when we did the recording they only gave me my pages," says Mantegna. "And everybody did their stuff individually. I couldn't even tell you which direction they're going in based on what I did. It was so disjointed and totally intentional.

The Simpson's' Movie Secret Even to Fat Tony!

"I'm just glad to be a part of it," he adds. "I love doing Fat Tony. It's one of the longest-running guest roles I've had. There's no other character I've done for 17 years. I gauge how long I've been doing 'The Simpsons' by my youngest daughter, who was born when I first started." However, the father of two says of the decidedly adult cartoon, "I didn't let them watch it till they were a certain age."

Mantegna — who stars with Debra Messing and Judy Davis in the USA Network's May 31-debuting six-hour miniseries, "The Starter Wife" — says he's, of course, "also still working on 'The Simpsons' series. I usually do two or three episodes a season, and since it's audio, I could even conceivably be in another part of the world doing it — and I've done that. But if I'm in town and they call and give me parameter dates, I find the time to just run over. They've kept the quality of the show really up, and it's a lot of fun."

LOCKE'D AND LOADED: "American Idol" and "Celebrity Fit Club" personality Kimberley Locke is in the midst of a whirlwind of activity as she launches her "Based on a True Story" album today (5/1) — and if she has her way, she'll be at least as busy touring this summer. "I just got off the phone with my manager, and we're working on it vigorously for me to go out on the road, but I don't know how or when yet. In this industry, everything happens at the last minute. I've gotten used to that. I've stopped trying to figure things out," she says. Still, in her perfect scenario, "I would go on tour in June or July for a couple of months. And then — I have a Christmas album coming out, so I'd like to tour again the end of the year. It's very traditional, a throwback.
I'm very happy with it," says Locke, who scored a hit with her new rendition of "Jingle Bells" last year.

SHE'S BAAAACK!: Kim Delaney is reprising her role as Captain Millfield, the thorn in Det. Olivia Benson's (Mariska Hargitay) side, in tonight's (5/1) episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" — and what an episode it is. "It's one of the two shows they're submitting for an Emmy nomination for the show itself, and the producers also submitted me for a nomination for Guest Star in it," reports the former "NYPD Blue" regular, who garnered three Emmy nominations and a win for that show.

Delaney — who stars with Catherine Bell and Sally Pressman in Lifetime's June 3 debuting "Army Wives" — first showed up on "L&O:SVU" in February sweeps, when "Mariska's character came over to New Jersey to investigate something and she really shouldn't have been on my character's turf. We were both investigating the same case, we both had personal reasons … and we were not so pleasant to each other." When they meet again, she says, "It gets more hostile and then it all blows."

WHEN CLOWNS GO BAD: "The Office's" Melora Hardin reports she gets to kick a little butt in the upcoming big-screen horror comedy "Drive-Thru." "It's about a clown who's the mascot of a fast food restaurant," says Hardin. "He's called 'Horny the Clown,' and he actually starts killing all the kids in a local high school. I play the mom of the most popular girl, and it's because of my dark secret that he's doing that. I got to kick a door down and shoot a gun."

KARMA CHAMELEON: "Napoleon Dynamite's" Shondrella Avery did such a good job at getting into character for the hit movie that she says industry people often don't recognize her. "I'm like, "Maybe you didn't remember? I was LawFanduh,'" she tells us about recently meeting director/writer Mike White. "There's always this delay because people tell me that I have a chameleon face — that I look different all the time. The most I get is, 'Oh, my God, you lost a lot of weight, and you're not so greasy in real life.' Can you believe people said that?" Luckily for Avery, who recently appeared in Denzel Washington's "Deja Vu," it hasn't kept her from getting work. "I'll be working on a movie in South Africa next. It's kind of like 'The Last King of Scotland,'" she notes.

(With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster)