Hugh Laurie seems amused by all the fuss about his latest TV incarnation, Dr. Gregory House, a role that has turned the 47-year-old Englishman into an overnight sex symbol as women worldwide react like teenagers when House is in the room.

When we think of Nicole Kidman, we think of a Hollywood icon who lives in a rarified world of private jets and limousines; a woman who routinely makes the best-dressed lists around the worlds and is synonymous with style. What we don’t think of is a woman who goes to a convention center to check out cars.

Hilary Swank doesn’t want to shake my hand. “I woke up with a sore throat this morning and I don’t want to spread it,” she says apologetically as we meet for afternoon tea at the less-than-prestigious Sheraton Hotel at Universal Studios in Los Angeles.

Here at a horse ranch in the Hollywood Hills where our cover shoot is taking place, the smell of success is in the air. OK, so it’s more like horse manure, but Will & Grace star Debra Messing seems surprisingly unaffected by the odor that is causing much grumbling amid the assorted stylists, hair and makeup artists and assistants congregating outside the dressing room trailer where her one-year-old son Roman (with husband/screenwriter Daniel Zelman) is happily playing at her feet.