TIFF '08 Reporter's Notebook: Aniston's Good PR, Hathaway's "Adorkable" Self

Mon., Sep. 8, 2008 4:05 PM PDT by Barry Brown

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• Jennifer Aniston (Management) couldn't manage her feelings towards Brad Pitt (Burn After Reading). She canceled reservations in one hotel she considered too close to him and relocated to premises further away. Aniston's privacy was also protected by her main PR man Stephen Huvane, who spread his jacket in front of her to block any underwear shots during her limo exit.

• The premiere of Burn After Reading turned the normally cool Toronto crowd into a blazing mob of young girls hot for Pitt, who signed autographs on any material offered. The Bradulation overwhelmed costar Tilda Swinton, who felt compelled to apologize to the crowd: "I'm sorry I'm not Brad!"

• MIA from the Burn After Reading screamathon was Pitt BFF George Clooney, in Milan filming a Japanese commerical for Honda.

• Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) is the Oscar talk of the town. "This is the performance I always knew I wanted to give, the sort of world I always dreamed of being in," she said, adding that this film goes way beyond The Devil Wears Prada and The Princess Diaries and into "deep human emotions." Without a boyfriend to escort her, Hathaway was ushered down the red carpet by her mom and dad. "OK," she admitted, "I'm adorkable."

• "I'm a guy's girl and a girl's girl," said Elizabeth Banks (Zack and Miri Make a Porno), who went all out for director Kevin Smith. Although she thought one controversial MPAA-offending scene went "too far," she said after seeing the finished movie that she changed her mind. "It's such a great moment, a moment where we really push it, and why not?"

• A small and polite group of local protesters—who may have been part of a publicity stunt or just your typical low-key Canadians—were trying to save the soul of Bill Maher and damn his religion-mocking film, Religulous. Asked whether the sign-carrying marchers ("Pray for Bill," "Hate + Fear = Religulous") were employed by Maher, the comic only denied the handwriting was his, saying the demonstrators "wouldn't have been so lame if I'd hired them." Writer-director Larry Charles, who as a producer of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm made an art out of nothing, found nothing nice to say about Sarah Palin. Palin's desire to have creationism taught in school with evolution is, Charles quipped, "like teaching magic and chemistry together."

• Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo were in town to amp up the buzz for their Civil Rights story, The Secret Life of Bees. Latifah said she's brave enough to "drive in a car 200 miles an hour," ride a motorcycle "or put me on a roof five floors up. But you put me in with bees, I'm shivering. It was kind of scary." Latifah also noted how Barack Obama came campaigning near their set in North Carolina and "suddenly the world changed."

Check out all the stars in our 2008 Torornto Film Festival gallery.