Inside midtown Manhattan’s Bistro Milano, television screens broadcast an Italian soccer game, around which the majority of servers and patrons have crowded to gasp, cheer, and clap in unity. But first-time actress Gabourey Sidibe, oblivious, drowns out the clatter with her frequent snort-punctuated laughter. “My roommate and I love Chipotle. It’s so awesome!” she says, chuckling. “We go around noon, and we’re like, How badass would it be if we got a Corona with our burrito -- we’re such derelicts.” Sidibe’s definition of what makes a derelict couldn’t be further from the abuse she suffers as the title character in Lee Daniel’s Precious. Alongside Mo’Nique as her bilious mother, Sidibe plays a teenager who is twice impregnated by her HIV-positive father. The film, a dark but hopeful story about urban poverty and spiritual endurance, was produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, and will quite possibly garner Oscar nominations for its two leads. Here, the charming and spirited Sidibe explains the magic of being in the same room with Oprah, Mariah and, um, Steve Buscemi. (For more on Sidibe, check out the upcoming December/January issue of BlackBook -- this is just the gossipy stuff.)

Actor Paul Reubens is ready to dust off his gray suit and resurrect the bow-tied, bonkers Pee-Wee Herman in a traveling live stage show, before appearing in two new films by indie envelope-pushers David O. Russell and Todd Solondz. Here, the manic man-boy blows his big-top with a list of things that get him bent out of shape.

Kevin Long stretches his expertise over state lines on a daily basis. He serves as executive chef at both SHRINE Asian Kitchen, Lounge and Nightclub at MGM Grand at Foxwoods Resort Casino and Scorpion Bar, located in Foxwoods Casino. Long also heads the kitchen at Tosca and Caffe Tosca in Hingham, Massachusetts. Humbly starting his career at family restaurants on Boston’s South Shore, Long rose to work alongside one of his idols, Thomas Keller, at The James Beard House and the Park Avenue Cafe.

Bryan Batt plays creative director Salvatore Romano on AMC's Mad Men, and he's emerged as one of the show's most unambiguously sympathetic characters. A talented and expressive professional, he's also a deeply closeted gay man in an era and culture that keeps him very much on the down low -- even to himself. Fans were shocked when Sal was abruptly fired from ad agency Sterling Cooper after rejecting the advances of an amorous client, and his future on the show remains cloudy. Batt's prospects, however, have rarely looked rosier, as he enjoys both critical acclaim and domestic success with his New Orleans decor boutique, Hazelnut (co-owned with Batt's partner of many years Tom Cianfichi). Batt talks with us about his ideal return to Mad Men, hunky National Guardsmen making the best of Hurricane Katrina, and getting dressed to the nines.

What was slated to be a knuckle-duster bloodbath of political discourse and childish name calling between former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at Radio City Music Hall has been canceled. The event, part of a series called “Minds That Move the World” was JUST ANNOUNCED TODAY. How quickly our dream of reading online snippets the proceeding day came to a crashing halt when the Presidential camps found out that a concert promoter was acting unscrupulous. The NY Post (known for its unabashed subtlety) reports that the “death-match faceoff” was envisioned more so as a moderated mani/pedi than as a contemporary restaging of the Final Match in Bloodsport. While this is the official rationale given by Clinton spokesperson Matt Mckenna it is clear that the real reason lies beyond.

Terry Gilliam needs a muse. The 69-year-old director of Twelve Monkeys and Brazil came close to finding one back in 1988, when he cast a then-unknown Uma Thurman in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. But she left him for another rebel named Quentin and, according to Gilliam, “she never came back.” Two decades later, Gilliam’s latest film,The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, features another otherworldly acting novice with blue saucers for eyes: supermodel Lily Cole. The 21-year-old Brit plays the title character’s doomed daughter, who aches for a suit-and-tie husband and white picket fence, in a welcome return to surreal form for the director.

If we start making a list of excellent career choices, Eva Ziegler may have to play role model right at the top. The Austrian-born marketing mastermind is the "Global Brand Leader" for W Hotels and head of the global launch for Le Méridien Hotels as part of parent company Starwood Hotels & Resorts. From her home base in New York, Ziegler spends her 9 to 5 working on strategic planning (establishing the Starwood brand, scope, marketing strategies, implementing design) for hotels across the globe. Arguably, the biggest perk is that her job also includes traveling to all of these hotels (from Istanbul to Bali). In a smooth Austrian accent, the charming power player makes it all look and sound effortless, in between jet-setting to exotic locations to conduct business, of course.

The Green Goblin. Bobby Peru. Nosferatu (sort of). Jesus Christ. Willem Dafoe has played his share of icons -- and after nearly three decades in the movie business he himself has become emblematic of the actor as committed chameleon, versatile, dedicated and always convincing. If Dafoe is best known for portraying scenery-chewing villains, that’s because his intense, impish persona makes his heavies so memorable -- not because he hasn’t played his share of nice guys. (His breakout role was the kind-hearted Sgt. Elias in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, for which he received the first of two Oscar nominations. And then there was that martyr guy.) Whether playing the bad, the good or the crazy, Dafoe’s characters have little more in common than searing intensity and an endearing gap between their two front teeth.

If you’re already in a position of power and influence in an increasingly saturated marketplace, that is. Jordan Hoffner, white and beautiful, was just hired away from You Tube where, according to his LinkedIn profile, he has been the Director of Content Partnership for the past three years. Ben Silverman has plans for you and plans for me, BUT HE WON’T TELL US AND IT MAKES ME WANT TO TEXT HIM AT ODD HOURS IN THE NIGHT,“ DTF?”

I lost my virginity in the backseat of my 1990 Nissan Pathfinder that I had purchased with my Bar Mitzvah money to a girl named Christine on a darkened street in Santa Monica, CA when I was seventeen years old. Towards the end of the seven minutes of condomsex she told me to hurry because she had a misshapen canal and “this wasn’t working out” as a result. I didn’t understand what any of that meant, but I knew then and there as I sat panting and confused with my jeans around my DCs that I wanted to be the night editor of BlackBook. Another awkward first time after the jump.