Beck/Smith Hollywood

It’s dream-come-true time for Alicia Lagano.  As we speak, the wide-eyed beauty with the long thick waves of unruly brown hair is juggling preparations for her June wedding, shooting a guest spot on “Major Crimes” and promoting “The Client List.”  She’s just concluded work on Season 2 of the latter show – Lifetime’s top-rated series – a season in which her part has been expanded.

Fans of “The Client List,” know Alicia as the very material girl Selena — the spike heels and Corvette-loving, attitude-spewing masseuse who, like Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Riley, makes a bundle specializing in “happy endings.”  She’s also been Riley’s chief antagonist.  But that’s starting to change, as the show team and viewers have cottoned to Selena. 

“What I like about her now is, she more human-like.  Last season was great.  It was fun to play, don’t get me wrong.  But in varying degrees, she was kind of a one-note character,” Alicia reflects.  “This season, I think they’re really showing why Selena is the way she is. And I think people understand her maybe a little bit more now, they’re maybe with her a little bit more.  My character and Riley, we’re a little more — I wouldn’t say ‘friends,’ but in the same boat.  I think she’s less judgmental toward me and I’m less judgmental toward her because, hey, we’re doing the same thing here.  I’m surviving. She’s surviving.”

In fact, viewers can expect both their characters to show some heretofore unseen vulnerability in coming episodes.  Eventually, a time will come when Riley will realize “Selena is the only one she can trust to a point, which we never thought would happen.  It’s a really interesting dynamic.”

Their new-found camaraderie has led to a warmer relationship between her and Hewitt off-camera as well.  According to Alicia, while they’ve always had a good professional rapport, “I think it makes a difference when characters are becoming friendlier as opposed to me always yelling at her and being mean to her like last season.”

Alicia makes her high esteem for Hewitt clear.  “She’s a professional.  She’s a great director,” says the actress.  “I think some of our better episodes have been when she’s directing.  She really knows what she wants, and she’s an actor’s director because she knows both sides. She really gives us our freedom, with guidelines.”  On top of that, she points out that Hewitt “keeps her people working” – hiring her group of crew members and actors from one series to the next.  Her own first turn with Hewitt was on a “Ghost Whisperer” episode.

Now, Alicia is getting ready to marry her boyfriend of 10 years and former boss, Hector Rendon, the manager at the restaurant where Lagano used to work.   They’re having around 100 of their loved ones for a wedding in Agoura, outside Los Angeles, and will follow up with a honeymoon in the Dominican Republic.

Doing the series, “has changed my life.  This whole experience has changed my life,” Alicia says.  .  “You go from cleaning houses and waitressing to being on a series and getting different opportunities.  I’ve been doing this for almost 15 years now.  I’ve had some good years, but I’ve had some really struggling years, working two or three other jobs to keep going.  Sometimes my fiancé and I sit there and stare at each other, and I think we’re still in shock, you know?”

It will a June wedding – June 22^nd, to be exact – for Brooke Burns and “Warrior” director Gavin O’Connor.  And the leggy beauty who rose to fame on “Baywatch” tells us they’re planning their nuptials to include about 100 of their nearest and dearest.  “We’ve gone back and forth – ‘Let’s run away!’  ‘Let’s have only the girls’ – because he has a daughter as I do.  And then we decided we wanted to have our friends to share this and to have a big party.”

Burns has an awful lot to celebrate.  Madison, her daughter with ex-husband Julian McMahon, is a thriving, athletic middle schooler.  She has been able to take acting assignments that fit with her family life – including Lifetime’s April 27 “A Sister’s Revenge.”  And she’s alive to do it all, a fact particularly meaningful to Burns as it will be eight years in November since the diving accident that could have taken her life or left her paralyzed.  It did leave her with a broken neck.  It took a surgically-implanted titanium plate and rod and weeks of recovery for her to overcome her injury.

“I always say scars are a sign of victory not defeat,” she declares.

Burns is thankful for the paradigm shift in perspective brought on by her brush with death.   “I remember coming out of the hospital and thinking, ‘Okay, its time to re-evaluate,” she tells us.  “The first thing that hit me was, ‘Who am I spending my time with?’  I did a total clean out of friends, of people I knew maybe didn’t have the best of intentions, of people who made me wonder, ‘Why am I with this person?’”  It’s easy, she notes, to accumulate such acquaintances in the rush of building and keeping a career going in the industry — of “keeping the plates spinning,” as she puts it.

“I tried to go home more, and be with family more, and spend time with the people who mean the most to me.  In my parenting, it gave me an incredible sense of seizing the day and making every day with Madison count.”

Burns admits, “It’s easy to get away from that thinking, but I’m fortunate to have constant reminders of what’s important in life and to try to keep my eye on the game in that kind of way.  You think about what you want your legacy to be at the end of your life.  So it’s almost like having that deathbed kind of perspective in everyday living.”

What it has meant to her professionally is working in a way that allows her to honor her priorities.  Recent years have seen her in a string of made-for-cable-TV films.

“My fans are like, ‘Okay, you’re here and then you disappear.’  Part of that has been by design.  Having a daughter in middle school is very different from having a young child.  It’s a different kind of balancing act,” she observes.  “I just remember the middle school and high school years being difficult.  As a mother, I want to be fully present for Madison during this time.  That’s been key.  Julian and I have worked very hard to balance, to make sure one of us is in L.A. if the other parent is out of town.  So, these kinds of films, these crazy, insane, really hard hours – but in the big picture, shorter-term schedules – make really great sense for me.  Going to Ottawa for four weeks, six weeks, then having time at home works for my life.”

“A Sister’s Revenge” gave her the chance to play a bad girl like never before.

“I’ve gone from Hallmark to pure evil,” she notes.  Burns has a great laugh like a cascade of bells that rings out as she talks of this character, who is hell-bent on causing pain and suffering in the life of the man she believes responsible for her sister’s death.

“I loved all the complexities of her.  She’s so focused and single-minded about what her mission is, and yet at the same time, to accomplish that mission, she has to play so many different roles.  She is seductive, flirting with this man. She tries to befriend his wife. She has to pull off these different roles. So it kept me on my toes.”

This offers vicarious thrills for women, of course.  It sounds like every man’s nightmare?

“Yes, exactly!  Onscreen payback for everything bad a guy’s ever done to me.”  She laughs that laugh.  Then she demurs.  “No, no.  It’s just a treat to do something so different and step outside the box.  She really steps out of reality – that’s how far gone she is.”

Meanwhile, Burns is awaiting word on “Where Have You Been All My Life?” – described as sort of a “Dating Game” for the social media age.  She’s made two installments for the Game Show Network and will soon see if and when it’s scheduled.

As far as getting back into the series game?  It’s something I would be open to – if it were in L.A.  I know the hours can be tough, but at least being able to come home at night makes a big difference.  But going out of state or out of the country — I would probably have to wait a couple of years before I decided to relocate anywhere, for sure.”

She has a daughter, and soon, a husband to think about.

Get out your jingle bells.  David Hasselhoff is coming toward us Saturday (11/10) as a very merry guy who helps clients get through the holidays in style in “The Christmas Consultant,” a Lifetime movie he says he glommed onto because it’s family-oriented, and so is he.

Hasselhoff also tells us he is in negotiations for a show that would bring him back into the reality TV realm, this time on the Travel Channel, and that he plans to tour the U.S. with his one-man “An Evening With David Hasselhoff” stage show next year.  That show’s already been a success in Europe and the U.K, where the former “Baywatch” and “Knight Rider” star continues to have an avid following.

Will his “Evening With” show fare as well back home?  Followers of the Hasselhoff saga are well aware his life has been fraught with trauma, from past battles with booze to public derision.  However, he says, “I always feel that I’m staying mobile and staying positive.  It’s like William Shatner, you know?  You can’t keep guys like us down.  No matter what is said about us, or who’s made fun of us, we’re able to laugh at ourselves and move forward.  Life is about waking up and smelling the coffee,” he continues.

“I look at my dad and he’s 87 and he’s still a positive, incredible man.  That’s why I took this movie. I’d rather have a perfect kids’ movie, like ‘Home Alone,’ than play Santa’s rough-around-the-edges helper” — another role he says the network dangled before him.

So, does Hasselhoff feel a kinship with Shatner?

“I’ve seen his show before, in concert,” the Hoff replies.  “I’ve spoken to him several times.  We’re actually managed by the same guy so we have a lot in common.  I

really like his work ethic.”

Hasselhoff can identify with working hard on multiple fronts.  His home is “always rockin’ with a lot of different projects,” he says.

He already has investors lined up for his “Evening With” tour, he informs.  He’s looking forward to communing with audiences across the U.S.A., including the young crowd that knows him from “The Spongebob Squarepants Movie” or his short-lived “Hoff.”

“People are so kind to me and they seem to get it.  They know I am resilient.  To have a long and happy life, you have to be resilient,” he notes.

Meanwhile, there’s “The Christmas Consultant.”

Hasselhoff says that as soon as he read the script, he told his agent “100 per cent book it.” He explains, “I’ve been a fan of Christmas movies my whole life.  As a matter of

Fact, one important piece of information that I’ve never shared with anybody is I’ve been living on the same block where they filmed ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’  The backlot, where they built the town — Bedford Falls — is exactly four blocks from my house.  That was pointed out to me by one of my associates, my musical director, who is a real movie buff.  We’re in Encino, where they built Bedford Falls.  That is so amazing to me, because that is a movie that has so touched my heart.  Being in a Christmas movie that is family-oriented and very emotional and very fun is a great honor.  It’s cool, it’s really cool.”

SPEAKING OF FAMILY FARE:  Kristin Chenoweth makes a much — much — better host for the American Humane Association’s Hero Dog Awards than

Carson Kressley, who emceed the canine kudofest last year.  Cute as Carson can be, his campy humor was a weird mix with the often heart-tugging, sometimes heart-wrenching

honors — kind of like putting a hot pink frame on a George Earl painting.

Talk about heroics!  Among the eight honoree dogs, for example, is Jynx, a German Shepherd who sniffed out a gunman who was lying in wait to ambush a group of sheriffs on his trail, then attacked the gunman, then tried to pull his mortally-wounded handler to safety.  The widow accepted on behalf of Jynx, who now lives with her and her baby daughter.

Joey Lawrence, Pauley Perette, Kellie Martin, Denise Richards, Naomi Judd, Mark Steines and Jake T. Austin were among the celebrity attendees at the Beverly

Hilton event, airing tonight (11/8) on The Hallmark Channel.  Jewel was in great voice performing for the crowd.  And Carson — well, he was a good enough sport to do a little

comedy bit on tape.

End it

Has Kim Kardashian been putting the diva in “Drop Dead Diva” with her forthcoming recurring role?  Not at all, to hear the series’ April Bowlby tell it. 

“She was much better than I expected,” the actress lets us know.  “You never know with someone as famous as she is, who has such a following.  But she showed up on set on time, she knew her lines and she was very professional.  She came in ready to shoot and have fun.” 

And fun they do have, assures Bowlby, who plays Stacy Barrett, the wayward best friend of Brooke Elliott’s dual soul attorney character, Deb/Jane.  In the fourth season, due to launch June 3, Stacy’s inventive side emerges again.  (Fans will recall the “armvelope” driving accessory she came up with.)  This time, she has the “pake” — a pie encasing a cake — and she does so well with it, she launches “a pakery, of course.  It’s super fun,” Bowlby says.  Working with her is Nicky, as played by Kim Kardashian.

“She’s not playing herself, you know,” Bowlby points out.  “She comes in and gives me some love advice, and I follow it.”

The “DDD” writers have been having a field day with Stacy, who really did become naughty last season, what with becoming a TV star, getting a runaway ego, breaking the heart of her angel-man, Fred (Ben Feldman) and having an affair with her costar.  She also managed to turn Deb/Jane against her with her wanton ways.              

“I got around, I’ll tell you that,” Bowlby says with a laugh.  “I was really surprised with the writing.  I was like, who is this character?  I’m playing a diva.  It was awesome.  I feel I lucked out.  My character kind of gets to do anything and everything.” 

However, she admits, “A lot of people were very sweet, and they would come up and tell me, ‘I don’t like what you’re doing.  I want the old Stacy to come back.’”  And, is she back?  “She is doing good,” reports Bowlby, as the team is in the midst of its seasonal production outsideAtlanta.  “She is actually being really supportive of Jane, so thank goodness for that.”

THE BIG SCREEN SCENE:  Even as Halle Berry’s “The Hive” is being shopped to foreign investors at the Cannes Film Festival, director Brad Anderson is prepping for a late June production start on the thriller.  It hasHalleas a worker at a 911 call center who becomes involved with a call from a young girl — Abigail Breslin — who has been kidnapped and is frantically phoning from the trunk of her abductor’s car.  Already, there is buzz about how demanding each of these roles is, not to mentionAnderson’s obvious directing challenge with a plot that centers on two people who are on the phone, one in a dark, cramped spot.

Loretta Devine tells us that the set of  Lifetime’s Sunday (4/8)-debuting series version of “The Client List” — filled with actresses playing call girls — has become a popular studio destination.  “All the girls are absolutely beautiful, and with Jennifer Love Hewitt the star and producer, the guys — oh!  The guys come around.  They’ll come to push towel racks,” laughs the multi-talented actress, whose credits range from the original Broadway Dreamgirls through “Waiting to Exhale,” “Boston Public” and “Grey’s Anatomy.”

And now, she’s playing a madam — Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boss, as a matter of fact.  “Wait until you see her in the show,” Loretta says.  “This girl has a body.  Oh, my goodness!”

Loretta gets to be sexy, too.  How does she like that?  “All I can say is, Thank God for Spanx!”  She adds, “I love my role because she’s a strong woman who is running a business, but she has other sides.  Her husband left her three years ago for one of the girls.”

Beyond the sexy fun, she sees another side for the show as well.  “I think of it as a cautionary tale.  You get a chance to see all the troubles these girls are getting into trying to make a buck.  We’re shooting the eighth episode now, and all kinds of things are happening.  There’s a lot of drama in it, an undertone of danger, as well as comedy.”

Jeanne Tripplehorn says she didn’t hesitate when Jennifer Aniston phoned and asked her to be part of her “Five” movie that depicts five different  stories of women dealing with breast cancer.  “There are two breast cancer  survivors on my mother’s side of the family, so this was a no-brainer.  I was in.  It’s  different from what Lifetime normally does, and the network is really excited  about it — a new way of telling stories, with five short films together.”

Premiering Monday (10/10) on Lifetime, the film also boasts five  directors — Aniston, Alicia Keys, Demi Moore, Patty Jenkins and Penelope  Spheeris.  Tripplehorn’s oncologist character provides the through line, and she got  to get a taste of all the women’s directing styles.

Demi Moore was “very detail-oriented, very specific about what she  wanted.  Her concentration was just so amazing,” Tripplehorn says.  With Aniston,  “The whole mood on the set was this easy kind of feeling.  Her spirit infused the whole set. 

“Alicia Keys — I am in awe of Alicia.  This is her first time directing,”  she notes of the pop superstar.  “She had her son on the set — a baby under a year  old — and she was literally directing with a baby on her hip.  She did it with so  much grace.  She floated through her film.” 

Keys’ segment has Rosario Dawson’s character dealing with not only cancer but her well-meaning sister (Tracee Ellis Ross) and their aggravating mom  (Jenifer Lewis).  It also features Jeffrey Tambor.  There’s humor in it, for sure, but  the freshest and biggest laughs come in the section Aniston directed, with Patricia  Clarkson as a patient who gives herself a funeral, tells people in her life what she  really thinks of them and blows through her savings.  Tripplehorn’s main story has  the doctor becoming a patient. 

“I think for every director, the main goal was, ‘Let’s tell a great story.’   We were all — I don’t want to say brought our best game, but we were all aware  that what we were doing was bigger than any of us, and we were humbled by that,”  adds the actress.  She stresses that the filmmakers are hoping “Five” not only  inspires, but serves as a tool in fundraising and pushing research entities to come  together to find a breast cancer cure.

The “Five” ensemble also includes Lyndsy Fonseca, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kathy Najimy, Bob Newhart, Annie Potts, Xander Berkeley, Alan Ruck and Tony  Shalhoub.  It came along at a perfect time for Tripplehorn — in her first year without “Big Love” production since 2006.  “Normally we’d be half-way through  shooting the next season at this time of year,” she says.

As for what she would like to do next, the actress, who rose to fame in  features including “Basic Instinct” and “The Firm,” has a one-word answer.   “Comedy.”   Tripplehorn would love to be on a sitcom.  “I want to laugh, just like  all of America, for all sorts of reasons.”

Rachael Carpani Lifetime photo

“Against the Wall” star Rachael Carpani is looking forward to catching up on some sleep – now that the first 13 episodes of her Lifetime police drama are almost a wrap.

 “There’ve been a few times I’ve wanted to hit Snooze again on the alarm — I’m not a morning person.  In fact, I have done that and I’ve gotten into trouble,” claims the Aussie actress with a laugh.  Seriously, adds Carpani, “We were just saying the other day how sad it’s going to be not to see each other for awhile.  It’s a fun set, the kind where you find yourself doubling over laughing at midnight.  We were so lucky.  I didn’t meet anybody until we shot the pilot, and then we were saying ‘You look a little like me,’” she says of series brothers Brandon Quinn, Steve Byers and James Thomas — and parents Treat Williams and Kathy Baker. 

 The series has Carpani as an Internal Affairs detective whose job puts her at odds with her cop-filled family.  She’s smart and strong but makes mistakes and sometimes clutzy moves.  “When I read Abby, I thought, ‘I don’t care how.  This character is hilarious.  I’ve got to play her,’” the actress says. 

Carpani is used to putting in long hours on a series set.  She starred for “six and a half of my formative years” on Australian TV’s “McLeod’s Daughters,” which took place in a cattle station in the outback   Of the differences in productions, she says, “Really, it’s just on a bigger scale here.  The crews are pretty much the same.  A set’s a set.  Getting up at 4 a.m. is getting up at 4 a.m.  ‘McLeod’s Daughters’ was more physically challenging; we were on horseback every day.  Obviously, with ‘Against the Wall’ I do feel a little bit of pressure,” she says of carrying the show.  “But I try not to think about that part, and just do a good job.”

Brooke Elliott Lifetime photo

“Drop Dead Diva” star Brooke Elliott says viewers will find her character “becoming more comfortable in this new life, and becoming flirtier” as the just-launched third season unfurls.  “DDD,” of course, follows the unique saga of a vapid model whose spirit has mistakenly been dumped into the body of a brilliant plus-sized attorney.

Brooke says “I had no idea” the Lifetime series would wind up lasting this long

– with an ardent following and critical kudos.  “You never know which thing is going to hit and which one isn’t — and then to have the show continually picked up and continually supported by Lifetime is amazing,” says the Broadway veteran.

“DDD” also has a list of guest stars to die for, a particularly impressive feat considering they have to travel to the town outside Atlanta where the show shoots.  This year’s list includes LeAnn Rimes,  Kathy Griffin, Wendy Williams, Mario Lopez, Amanda Bearse, Tony Goldwyn, Howard Hesseman, Sharon Lawrence, Faith Prince, Jennifer Tilly and Louis Van Amstel.  Appearing in the forthcoming “gay prom” episode are Wanda Sykes, Lance Bass and Clay Aiken.  Brooke says she didn’t have scenes with Bass and Aiken, but loved working with Sykes.  “I think she had a really good time doing

her scene.  Her timing is impeccable.  Working with her was such a fun day.”

Margaret Cho Lifetime photo

Fans of Margaret Cho will like this.  The “Drop Dead Diva” costar tells us, “I’m in this season much more than in the last two.  It’s been a lot more work for me.”

The ever-provocative comedian is happy about that, and says the extra load hasn’t been any burden.  “I’d been touring for months beforehand so it was great to stay in one place for awhile.”  Now, with just a handful of episodes left to shoot in Season 3 — which premieres June 19 — she says she’s been flying back and forth between L.A. and Georgia, where the series shoots.  “I’m kind of getting out there and getting ready for the next leg of my tour.”

Her character, legal assistant Teri Lee, has “a couple of love interests this season,” Cho informs.  One of them is a former boyfriend of her boss, Jane Bingum (Brooke Elliott) — the plus-sized attorney into whose body plopped the spirit of a self-centered model at the outset of the quirky hit Lifetime series.  (Season 2 was released on home video last month, for those interested in catching up.)  Also coming up is a dance-centric episode in which Cho got to reunite with her “Dancing With the Stars” professional partner, Louis Van Amstel.

“I really love him,” she says.  “We got very close very quickly, which is what happens on ‘Dancing With the Stars.’  It was really fun.  I’m such a fan of his.”  As far as having to brush up on her ballroom dance moves?  “Oh, yes.  I forgot everything.  No — you don’t really forget.  That kind of intensity stays with you,” she says.

Her dance card outside the series is definitely full as well.  She has commitments all summer, and her tour takes her to the U.K. this fall.  She also has her “Cho Dependent” concert film that she recently unveiled at the Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival.  Expect that to get a cable premiere, then move to DVD.  “I’m excited because it’s a great show.  I do a lot of set comedy, I do a lot of music in there.  It was received really well in Hawaii.”

And on the TV side, Cho, who recently did an outrageous turn as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il on “30 Rock,” says “I hope to do more of that.  That was so cool.  It was Tina Fey’s idea.  It’s really exciting to do a show you’re a fan of.”