Lily Collins: Julia Roberts is 'creepy and eerie' as evil queen

Julia Roberts is "creepy and eerie" on the set of 'Brothers Grimm: Snow White'.

The 43-year-old actress is playing the evil queen in the forthcoming adaptation of the classic fairytale, and co-star Lily Collins - who plays the titular beauty - admits she is impressed by the "brilliant" performance she's been giving.

She said: "Everyone loves that Julia smile and laugh and she maintains that, but in such this creepy eerie way that you don't know if you love her or hate her.

"She's brilliant. She's so nice, she's classy, she's just everything I had hoped she'd be."

The 22-year-old actress has been working hard on the film - which is being released at around the same time as 'Snow White and the Huntsman' with Kristen Stewart - and reveals it is close to wrapping.

She added to Access Hollywood: "I flew in this morning, I fly back out tonight, I'm working tomorrow morning. It's been the most incredible experience. I feel like I'm literally in a fairytale every day. And I finish in about a week and a half, so I'm almost done."

Julia Roberts named "world's most beautiful" by People

Julia Roberts topped the list of People magazine's "World's Most Beautiful People" on Wednesday, marking the 12th time that the "Pretty Woman" star has appeared in the annual special issue.

Roberts, 42, the mother of 5-year-old twins and a 2 year-old son, is joined by Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Lopez on the 2010 list.

Garry Marshall, who directed Roberts in her breakout role as a prostitute with a heart of gold in the movie "Pretty Woman" 20 years ago, said she was "as beautiful as ever."

She's much more centered and calm now and not so stressed. She is quite the mom -- very nurturing," Marshall told People.

Roberts, who won an Oscar in 2001 for her lead role in "Erin Brockovich", will be seen next in August in the movie "Eat, Pray, Love" based on the best-selling book of the same name by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Ashley Greene, 23, who plays a vampire in the "Twilight" hit movie franchise, was among the newcomers to the widely-read list that annually is a measure of celebrity status.

Her "Twilight" co-star, heartthrob Robert Pattinson, as well as Canadian teen singer Justin Bieber and 2009 "American Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert made it to the male section of "world's most beautiful", while actresses Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba and singer Jessica Simpson were featured in a new "Beautiful Jessicas" section.

While Roberts appeared on the cover of the People magazine special edition, other celebrities were not ranked but included Jennifer Aniston, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Bradley Cooper, Johnny Depp and Patrick Dempsey.

Last year's title was awarded by People magazine to actress Christina Applegate, who had previously made public her battle with breast cancer and double mastectomy.

Letterman apologizes to audience for 'bad' joke

David Letterman says his joke about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter was a lousy joke, no matter how you cut it, and he's sorry.

But the late-night host insists that what's got people outraged is the misunderstanding over which Palin daughter the joke was about.

On Monday's edition of "Late Show," Letterman explains that the risque joke thought by some to have targeted Palin's underage daughter, Willow, was actually intended for 18-year-old daughter Bristol. The name of the daughter wasn't mentioned in the joke, which was part of Letterman's monologue on last Monday's show.

"It's not your fault that it was misunderstood," he tells his audience. "It's my fault." And he says he'll try to do better.

"Duplicity" turns spy games into slick fun

Actress Julia Roberts (L) and British actor Clive Owen arrive for the premiere of "Duplicity" by U.S. director Tony Gilroy in Paris March 12, 2009.

In "Michael Clayton," his first outing as a director, veteran screenwriter Tony Gilroy used a thriller format to investigate how skulduggery and deceit can corrupt the souls of individuals who do the dirty work of major corporations. His second film as a writer-director, "Duplicity" -- which could just as easily have been the title of his first film -- covers the same territory, again with a thriller format, only this time the whole thing is so tongue-in-cheek that whatever moral dilemma the characters suffer gets subsumed in an elaborate and satirical con game.

The movie is fun, with plenty of intrigue and suspense that will have audiences clutching at their arm rests. It's also cool in tone, holding its characters at a distance, perhaps even shaking its head knowingly at their flaws and foibles. With Julia Roberts and Clive Owen top-billed and a host of terrific character actors led by Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson, the film -- which Universal Pictures releases Friday (March 20) -- is poised to play strongly to adults in sophisticated markets.

Gilroy certainly likes a busy canvas with a jumble of time frames and a welter of conflicting motivations. This movie has all the moves and countermoves of an old Cold War spy film, only these spies work as corporate operatives for fiercely competitive pharmaceutical giants. In Hitchcockian terms, the McGuffin has changed from secret codes to a Doomsday machine to secret formulas for hair shampoo.

The film begins in 2003, when CIA officer Claire Stenwick (Roberts) and MI6 agent Ray Koval (Owen) have a collision with destiny. At a U.S. embassy party in Dubai, she catches his eye, they slip off to his bedroom, she slips him a mickey and swipes classified documents from his room. He can't get over her, though it's hard to say whether his sexual infatuation trumps his desire for revenge.

In present day, the duo seems to be caught up in a cold war -- lower case -- between two cutthroat corporate CEOs, Giamatti and Wilkinson, based in Manhattan. Further flashbacks establish that the couple has met again in Rome, rekindled their erotic attraction and maneuvered themselves into positions on either side of this corporate war to double-cross their bosses so they might walk away with enough retirement pay for a lush life outside of espionage.

The only trouble is, they still don't trust each other. Ray sees this as a kind of brutal honesty that places them above normal human beings. Nobody trusts anybody, he assures Claire, we're just willing to cop to that basic fact.

Their con game, which sprawls across locations in Italy, England, the U.S. and the Bahamas, is cleverly plotted by Gilroy, who of course is playing his own con game with the audience: Even as you hope against hope that one lover does not betray the other -- both seem so ready to do so -- you know Gilroy is withholding vital information for a surprise ending.

That final twist will satisfy most viewers, but something is missing at the end: any sense of what's at stake for the protagonists. To pick an example from the Hitchcock canon, you know Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman are desperately in love in "Notorious" no matter how much deception and duplicity exist between them. You have no idea with Gilroy's spy couple.

Gilroy is truly one of Hollywood's best filmmakers when it comes to story. He can create strong characters and breathtaking situations that generate extreme tension. But his view of humanity contains enough misanthropic cynicism that human tenderness escapes him.

"Duplicity" enjoys superb production values that add to the exhilaration of the film's rush through the familiar yet still welcome territory of movie espionage twists and turns. Gilroy employs nearly every key crew head who made "Clayton" such a slick and compelling thriller. They might have topped themselves here.