There is no whir of helicopters or roar of black SUVs in pursuit when I meet Nicole Richie on a sultry winter day in the lounge of the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. The room is marked by stillness; when Richie walks in, understated, unadorned and unaccompanied, the only eyebrow she raises is that of comedian Richard Lewis, who is camped out at a nearby table. “He’s always here,” says Richie, and she should know. The Chateau Marmont serves as an adjunct living room to her own home, in the nearby Hollywood Hills. (See our full Nicole Richie fashion gallery.) She comes here often for the same reasons anyone sticks with a favorite haunt. “It’s private, the people are nice—and the food is good.”

There is a feral glint in the gaze of Emile Hirsch that conjures up the same spark of the scalawag in Jack Nicholson. Stylistically, the Hirsch that took on Into the Wild is the younger brother of back roads Jack in 1969’s Easy Rider. Both actors seem to belong to a physical and artistic open range. Sure, they will show up for premieres buffed and polished, but those airings are perfumed with an attitude that says flirtatiously, “What do you dare me to do?” Their natural habitat is more blue horizons than red carpet -- more open bathrobe and overgrown hair, less creased pants and being on time for brunch.

How best to spend a surfeit of talent is a problem shared by few, but in the case of Justin Timberlake, is a dilemma that grows like his curly hair -- overnight and exponentially. He sings, he dances, acts, produces, and then there is the daily task of simply being JT. In his multi-digital existence, Timberlake’s counterpart in the classics is none other than analog icon Frank Sinatra. Whether he was behind the microphone or in front of the camera, the transitions were seamless, his very Frankness evident in every blue-eyed wink.

As Vincent Chase, the skirt-chasing superstar on HBO’s enduring bro-com Entourage, Adrian Grenier cuts the kind of swath through Hollywood pioneered by Warren Beatty, the original sexual firestarter. But the bond between these two symbols of success extends far past the reach of dark, tousled hair and shirts open to the waist.

James Dean and James Franco share a common given name, and Prince James played King James in a biopic that won Franco a Golden Globe in 2002. The two are now linked forever, but fate dove in before the agents ever placed a call. It was a casting choice far bigger than the triumph of comparable facial features and skin tone: Franco was the right person to star in that portrait because, like Dean, he is too complex, too aggressively artistic to be contained by an 8x10 glossy.

High above Beverly Hills, a sun the color of a vodka screwdriver gazes weakly into a suite at the Four Seasons Hotel. In walks an Amy Adams that we have not yet met. We’ve seen her in a tiara, a nun’s robe and sensible office attire. Today she is lean in tight, dark jeans, a snug T-shirt and a low-cut jacket. She tosses her signature cherry-drop hair, and thanks to a recent cold, speaks in a sultry, Lauren Bacall rasp. One can’t help but wonder if the rough, sexy speaking voice is the latest twist in a career that is traveling down some fresh asphalt. Maybe she should maintain that louche larynx by screaming in parking lots at midnight. “That would really expand my repertoire of work,” Adams says. “It could change people’s perceptions of me.”

Kristen Stewart, star of vampire romancer Twilight, made an appearance in our New Regime lineup. (Also check out our interviews with Twilight star Michael Welch and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, plus first reactions after Twilight's premier weekend.) Here's a full Q&A with the preciously precocious young lady, where she talks about being Bella, living life as a working actress, and the authority issues that lead her to read Camus, Steinbeck, and Bukowski on her own.

You got your start as a child. Did you always see yourself acting into adulthood?
It was never a preconceived thing. It was always arbitrary, I think. Subsequently, I became very passionate about acting. Now, there is no reason for me to stop doing this.

What impact did working with Sean Penn on Into the Wild have on you?
It definitely opened my eyes to a different creative process. His direction is very specific, but still, he lets things happen. He just wants you to go for it. Once he picks his characters, he gives you that confidence. Plus, I really enjoyed working with Emile [Hirsch]. He’s such a good friend of mine. That was like a little section of my life. It was very fruitful.

To put it bluntly, former Nickelodeon mascot Josh Peck has grown into one of the dopest comedians of his generation.

How did Josh Peck, former child actor and Nickelodeon’s teenage “Shecky Greene,” become the newest member in the canon of cool? He walked off -- and kept walking -- with last summer’s badass, Jazzy Jeff funky slice of a movie, the stoner romance The Wackness. There he was, Josh of Drake & Josh, grown up, thinned out and higher than Bob Marley, holding his own opposite Sir Ben Kingsley. Respect. And Peck, 22, has big plans to abuse his soaring fame. “I’m not going to wait in line for anything,” he says, laughing. “I’ll pretty much emulate Frank Lucas’ life from American Gangster, you know, $50,000 chinchilla coats. It’s going to be obscene.”

The New Vamp: Bookish babe Kristen Stewart sinks her teeth into the lead role of the bestselling, bloodthirsty 'Twilight'.

A passionate lover of literature, Kristen Stewart’s version of High School Musical would find her in AP English parsing John Steinbeck and Kurt Vonnegut. Between takes, she reads Charles Bukowski. How else might a quiet teenager, who calls herself “a typical Valley Girl,” pull up to the table headed by Sean Penn? The director cast her as a kind of trailer park Cat Power in last year’s Into the Wild after she auditioned by singing the Beatles’ “Blackbird,” accompanying herself on guitar. The girl’s got guts.

At Monday night's Los Angeles launch (sponsored by "Louis XIII Black Pearl de Rémy Martin") for beautyLIGHT (teNeues), the exquisite new book by iconic photographer Matthew Rolston, on display was all the evidence we need that supermarket tabloids are ruining the fun of worshiping celebrities. Rolston's electrifying portraits of stars such as Angelina Jolie, Matthew McConaughey, Salma Hayak, Jude Law, Beck, Reese Witherspoon and dozens more of Hollywood's most riveting personalities are a stark contrast to where we normally see them these days. Badly lit street shots of a celeb running for his or her SUV are not glamorous -- it's crime scene photography.