The most beautiful woman of the 1990s (in our humble opinion) is heading back into the acting game after a period of relative obscurity. Also today: Casting news from your favorite office, the return of Steve Sanders, and Glenn Close's Oscar chances.

  • In a strange time long ago known as The 1990s, model-turned-actress Elizabeth Hurley was going places. She was with Hugh Grant, she was in Austin Powers, and other movie roles soon followed. But then cruel Father Time came tromping on through and flash forward a bunch of years and we haven't heard from her for a long while. Until now! OK sure she was the villain in the ultimately doomed Wonder Woman pilot, but now here's a sure, solid bit of work. Elizabeth Hurley is going to do a guest arc on The CW's remedial drama Gossip Girl, playing some sort of bitch or something. So hey, it's not exactly the lead in an awards movie, but it's something. Everyone's gotta (re)start somewhere. Welcome back, Elizabeth! And may you bring more of the The 1990s back with you. Anyone up for a rousing game of Pogs? [TV Line]
  • James Spader did such a good job playing a deep-staring business dynamo on the season finale of The Office that they've gone and hired him full-time. The Wolf villain will reprise the role of Robert California when the sex-focused work genius gets hired to manage the paper store but then gets promoted to CEO of the whole operation. So will this be like an adding Ed Helms thing or an adding Timothy Olyphant but then oh ha ha never mind kind of thing? Either way, it's a good thing. James Spader is funny and weird and that show is in serious need of some star power. (But really it should have just ended already, I mean come on, everyone knows that.) [EW]
  • Sweet heavens Liz Hurley, you really have brought the '90s back. 90210's resident brillo-mullet Ian Ziering has been cast in an upcoming movie based on the American Girl dolls. No word yet on which doll the movie's going to be based on, but we can all hope for Molly right? Or would Samantha be better? Molly has the wartime stuff, but with Downton Abbey and all that, older period stuff is popular again, so maybe Samantha would be fun. I highly doubt Kirsten. They discontinued the Kirsten doll, did you know this? It's a crime, a real crime. Well the true crime is how expensive all that stuff is, that's the true crime here, but the Kirsten thing is a bad thing too. Anyway I have no idea where we were but yes, Ian Ziering. Son of a bitch. Here we go. [Variety]
  • Abigail Spencer, the school teacher who went to Bowdoin and jogged in the night and taught Don Draper about the impending social revolution of the 1960s (on a TV show, I think, probably not in real life), has just landed a role in Disney's big Oz, the Great and Powerful, to be directed by Sam Raimi. So good for her! I guess all that women's lib stuff really does pay off. Also, speaking of this movie, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, and Mila Kunis as witches, and now a sexy Mad Men actress? Are we sure this movie isn't called The Great and Powerful Brooklyn Boner? [THR]
  • So everyone totally thinks that Meryl Streep is going to win next year's Oscar award for Best Woman Acting for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, but now there's scuttlebutt that Glenn Close, five times the Oscar bridesmaid and never the bride, might be giving La Streep a run for her money in a movie where she plays a woman pretending to be a man. The movie is a play adaptation called Albert Nobbs, which is a funny name because knobs. You know, knobs. Heh. So yeah, it's basically the '80s again now, instead of the '90s, with Meryl Streep and Glenn Close duking it out at the Oscars, so I think you pulled a little too hard on that time rope, Elizabeth Hurley. Just let go a little. We don't want the '70s to come back because then I won't be alive and this post won't exist and nothing will exist because of that paradox and we wouldn't want the world to end. Not before we can see you on Gossip Girl, anyway.. [Deadline]

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