Bin Laden in the sky with diamonds

Depp proposes trippy Afghan solution; dildos penetrate "Panic Room" set; Cruise clarifies gay position. Plus: Still more news from Stalkersville!

By Amy Reiter

Feb 8, 2002 | Will Johnny Depp be the next actor to declare his intention to run for U.S. prez?

Not only are he and his French girlfriend, Vanessa Paradis, working on their nuclear-family credentials, having announced the impending arrival of their second child in June, but Depp has begun making like a commander-in-chief and strategizing about the war in Afghanistan.

Needless to say, he doesn't think the Oval Office's current occupant and his staff went about things quite right.

"They should have saturated Afghanistan with liquid LSD and got everybody goofed out of their minds," Depp told the U.K. Sun. "Then they should have sent the military in dressed as Teletubbies. They would have just cleared it right out."

And he feels certain that, had they done things his way, Osama bin Laden wouldn't have had the presence of mind to escape but would have been smoked right out of his cave and wandering around, high as a kite.

"Bin Laden would have been in a blonde wig and eight-inch-high heels, singing 'These Boots Are Made for Walking,'" Depp maintains.

Wino Forever indeed.

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This woman on "That Girl"

"Oh geez. I've changed my hair ... and a few other things."

-- Marlo Thomas, faced with a montage of much-younger images of herself from "That Girl" at the Museum of Television and Radio's annual gala Wednesday night.

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Good vibrations amongst the panic

To hear Jared Leto tell it, things got a little out of hand on the set of "The Panic Room," the forthcoming thriller in which he stars with Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker and Dwight Yoakam, among others.

Despite the film's scary premise -- three men search a mansion for a missing fortune, while a woman (Foster) cowers in one of its rooms -- Leto says there was "a lot of laughter on the set."

Maybe too much laughter.

"We were shooting a really serious scene with Forest and Dwight," Leto recalls in the March issue of Jane. "When they said 'Action,' we ran downstairs and opened this huge bag that was supposed to be filled with drills and hammers, but instead, uh, about 120 dildos fell out."

It was just one of the special little jokes the propmasters played on the unsuspecting cast, though where they got 120 dildos is anyone's guess.

Now, now, don't even think of blaming Jodie ...

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Not that there's anything wrong with that

Tom Cruise's crusade against being labeled "gay" seems to be at a lull. Not so his crusade against being labeled "homophobic."

His lawyer, Bert Fields, is apparently still out there fighting the good fight on that one.

Cruise filed all those anti-defamation lawsuits "to protect his career and his children," Fields tells W magazine. "This is not a question of saying that's there's anything wrong with being gay. It's just that Tom isn't. He's a very heterosexual guy."

All right, all right, already.

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