BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD

This Month

THE PUBLIC EDITOR V.F. OMBUDSMAN W. DEGROFF HINTERHOFER MAKES HIS DEBUT

GEORGE WAYNE THE FUR FLIES WITH FURRIER DENNIS BASSO

Plus:

NEAL POLLACK GETS GAY-MARRIED AND MORE!

AGE AND OCCUPATION: 23, actor. PROVENANCE: Los Angeles FULL DISCLOSURE: Howard—niece of oddball actor Clint Howard and daughter of a slightly better-known Howard, Ron-was a Vanity Fair summer intern. "I worked in the research department, and sometimes the publicity and the photo departments. It was so awesome." PLAYDATE: Born in L.A., buteS raised in the New York suburbs—Connecticut, then Westchester—Howard studied drama at N.Y.U. before leaving after two and a half years to hit the stage professionally. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THE M STANDS FOR? It was her work onstage in As You Like It that led to Howard landing the lead in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. "M. Night Shyamalan and [producer] Scott Rudin came to see it. Night called my agent and said he wanted to go to lunch with me. He said, 'Here's the script. Tell me if you'd be interested.' And I was like, 'Are you kidding me?—I was going to a temp agency after lunch—'I'll do it!' And he was like, 'No Please. Read the script and see if you like it.'"_She liked it: The Village hits theaters this summer. DARK-INDIE-FILM ALERT: Next up for Howard is Lars von. Trier's Manderlay, the second film in the "USA' trilogy (Dogville being the first). "The role is Nicole Kidman's role from Dogville. She wanted to do it, but scheduling-wise they just couldn't work it out_ I don't want to demean the integrity of the film, but it's like Batman—it doesn't matter who plays Batman. The story is more important."

KRISTA SMITH