Winger, who was a leading lady in the 1980's, quietly left Hollywood to perform on stage throughout the past 15 years or so, dividing her time between plays, her family, and her job as a professor of Literature of Social Reflection at Harvard University. She was thrust back into the spotlight after Rosanna Arquette, using Winger as an example of Hollywood's cruelty toward actresses who dare to age, based a documentary, "Searching for Debra Winger," around her. Winger apparently was not pleased. "I was interviewed for it when it was called something else, and I said to Rosanna at the time, this is your question," Winger says, "I had no idea what she planned on calling the film, and she made me the poster child for something I was not talking about. I didn't give a shit [about what Hollywood was going to do to me]. I was just tired of it."

Winger, who is currently getting rave reviews for her performance in Rachel Getting Married, also takes a swipe at actresses (she refers to them as "boiled faces") who cave to the pressure, citing Nicole Kidman's permanently frozen face as a prime example: "Scary. They go in [to see their doctors] saying: make me look like myself - or like myself 20 years ago. But you know, I have a movie out now and I can't bear to watch it. I see myself up there, and it's not normal to scrutinise your own face on a screen this big; it's like opening a vein. So I do have some compassion for Nicole Kidman, or whoever, who has obviously looked at her face and sort of dissected it, like it's a thing. I don't want to be the poster child for wrinkles, and that's what they make you if you speak out about that whole culture. So I don't, mostly. But it has gotten so ridiculous as a job. [At the film festivals] the celebrities are dragging their movies in, going 'look at this!' instead of the movie being the thing, and they're just there to support it. It's a case of: 'Look at my dress, at my hair, at my face and ... oh, by the way, there's a movie here, too!'

In the end, however, Winger admits that she thinks the only way women are going to get good parts in Hollywood is if women actually start writing them: "Roles for women. There aren't any. They've been saying that since the 1920s, and it's true. [My theory is that] women don't write enough. Because who do they expect to write these roles? Men?"

Winger, who has just written a book, Undiscovered, has a point, yet it's a bit unfair to put the burden on female screenwriters alone, knowing that many of them wouldn't have final say over casting, anyway. Still, Winger has a point, and it is a point that has been made over and over and over again: Hollywood needs to understand that women do not fade out at age 25; they do not stop falling in love or messing up or being interesting or sexy or creative or troubled or worth watching. They do not all become a variation on a wacky Diane Keaton overbearing mother. And with Hollywood's A-list actresses all aging up, despite the amount of Botox they may try to use to fight it one wonders if Hollywood will finally begin creating more roles for what will be a representative of much of our population. As Winger notes, there are many actresses just waiting to bring real women to the screen: "In the early part of my life I carried the flame for fiery women: perky women who were not dumb. And now I feel like I could be the woman to play this role: the invisible woman."

Rachel Cooke Interviews Debra Winger [The Guardian]

• Cops believe that the robbers are also responsible for burglaries at the upscale homes of "Paramount Pictures chief Sherry Lansing and her Oscar-winning director husband, William Friedkin, Clippers basketball star Cuttino Mobley, Duran Duran guitarist John Taylor and his wife, Juicy Couture President Gela Nash-Taylor, and country music stars Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. [LAT]
• And now, here is a stoner soliloquy from the Bard, Woody Harrelson: "A new day, trembling with potential / I am the potentiate, and my life is equal to the task of living of loving, of moving my love"—that's my name for Laura, "my love"—"Yesterday I wallowed in me-hood, following a well-worn path / Today, I jump from bridges, dance on tiny windowsills high above the ubiquitous crowd of unsuspecting faces / Combative. Angry. Hostile. Those were the bedrock of this body's previous tenant and now I, nameless, unnameable, ergo mysterious, incorrigible, march to the musical manifestations, the bass and harp of distant angels, calling me with their many magnificent mouths: Dance, creature! Put down your pen, lift up your limbs, and dance to greet another golden morning." [Esquire]
• Fergie and Josh Duhamel will wed in January! Apparently Nicole Kidman and Kate Hudson will be in attendance. Let's hope Fergie pees before she gets strapped into her gown! [Popdirt]
• Here's a list of Mark Ronson's 99 favorite bands. Now I don't have to be embarrassed about loving Ben Folds anymore, because he's Ronson-approved! [ Guardian]
• Sarah Jessica Parker has spoken to Sex and the City costar Jennifer Hudson, and Parker says, "The little bit that I would share is just that I think she's surviving. I don't know how a person navigates anything like this. And I think nobody is prepared for something like this. But she is incredibly strong. She is a woman of faith. And I think she is figuring out. I can't imagine what it must be like for her." [Daily Express]
• If you want to remember Britney in happier, pre-fame days, check out this cutie audition she did as a wee one. [this cutie audition tape]
• Dustin Hoffman asked for the theater he donated money to build at Santa Monica College to name a bathroom after him. His wish was granted! Who doesn't want to pee in Dustin Hoffman's room? [EW]
• There's a rumor going around that Pete Doherty destroyed one of his arteries through too much intravenous drug use. At least there were no kittens involved this time. [Dlisted]
• If you were looking for more insight into Tara Reid's recent entrance into rehab, try this: "She becomes erratic and is a completely different person when she's intoxicated, which is hard for people close to her to watch." Maybe it would also be good for her if those people close to her stopped talking to celebrity rags? Just sayin'. [People]
• Billie Jean is just a girl who says…she wants £668 million from Michael Jackson. "Billie Jean Jackson alleges she is the mother of the singer's son Prince Michael Jackson II, nicknamed Blanket. The woman demands £668 million in support payment, as well as joint legal and physical custody of the six-year-old." Doesn't sound like a fake nuisance lawsuit at all, no sir. [ Daily Express]
• Now that Debra Winger has returned to the silver screen with critical fave Rachel Getting Married, she's answering questions about the Rosanna Arquette documentary Searching For Debra Winger. “I told her she didn’t need my permission because my name is public domain," the notoriously salty star says. "I understand that it was a lovely film but I decided that I wouldn’t see it so that I wouldn’t have to comment on it. It was deeply embarrassing because after I had spent eight years seeking some amount of obscurity, in one fell swoop she obliterated that possibility by putting my name in the title.” [Telegraph]
• Tracy Pollan, the actress best known for being married to Michael J. Fox, will star in a Lifetime movie about Natalie Holloway. She'll play Natalie's mom, Beth Twitty, in The Natalee Holloway Story. The movie is based on the real life Beth Twitty's book Loving Natalee: A Mother's Testament of Hope and Faith, which in our opinion is a much better Lifetime movie name. [ PR Wire]

Rachel Getting Married Trailer [Youtube]

*Full Disclosure: my ball n' chain works for Sony Pictures Classics, the company that's releasing Rachel, but that in no way changes my opinion of this trailer or its efficacy as a tearjerker.