Amy Adams likes butter -- she recently confessed to having reintroduced it to her diet. She swears cooking eggs in butter makes them “really, really good.” Duh. If being a celebrity means not knowing that butter makes everything better, then I’m happy to be a nobody. Sure, there’s a little issue with weight. Both Adams and Meryl Streep are making no secret of how they put on the poundage during filming of Julie & Julia. Streep jokingly blamed the gain on director Nora Ephron, who encouraged a lot of eating on the set. If you’re going to do a movie about a woman determined to make every single recipe in a Julia Child cookbook, porking out is natural collateral damage. This is the kind of celebrity news I can use. I don’t care how Valerie Bertinelli managed to get herself back into a bikini. I want to see celebrities eating and drinking and being normal-sized. Hey Amy, this just in. Butter is also really good on pancakes. Especially decadent, golden-browned lemon popup pancakes.

Yes, she looks sensational teetering down the red carpet in a gossamer sheath dress on 4.5-inch stilettos. But what do she and the toothy, head-to-toe Viktor & Rolf victim on her arm wear in real life? Now that the economy has been felled with a resounding thud, a comforting truth can be told. When the lensmen aren’t stalking them, stars, and the rest of us -- men in bars, fashionistas in town cars, even state troopers on their own dime -- have at least two pairs of jeans they wear day and night, a beloved assortment of ratty old T-shirts, a stack of tony sweaters and possibly a worn-in leather jacket. It’s a national uniform.

The "Red Hot Hollywood" issue of BlackBook is on newsstands now, featuring cover girl Amy Adams, actress Emily Blunt, photo shoots from Sasha Grey and Mischa Barton, and much more. Check out our complete cover gallery while you wait.

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.”

I love a good brief encounter. Just the other night, I ran into downtown sensation Justin Bond on First Avenue. He looked radiant, and raring to go for a night out. I was on my way to see The Wrestler. (He hadn’t seen it, but his cute friends said they liked the trailer.) “Well, I’m going to see people,” Justin said in his uncanny delivery, and he and his two pals were off to the Metropolitan Bar. Not a minute later, while en route to Sunshine Cinemas, I stopped into my local coffee shop for a surprisingly delicious vegan red velvet cupcake, and in walks BlackBook’s Icons issue cover star Matt Dillon. I was happy to hear that our story elicited such “great feedback -- I got so many emails and calls about it.” He had seen The Wrestler and gave it serious praise.