Paltrow Plays Porker

Crown princes of bad taste Bobby and Peter Farrelly are being kept busy these days. 20th Century Fox has just acquired a pitch for Nothing Up My Sleeve (about a magician who is mysteriously blessed with real magical powers) for the brothers to produce. They are currently working on animated feature Osmosis Jones, starring Bill Murray; another Farrelly production, the piss-poor Say It Isn't So, hits US screens this week and a couple of days ago they committed to produce a big-screen version of The Three Stooges. And if that weren't enough, they are also preparing to write, produce and direct Shallow Hal, a starring vehicle for hot-as-a-pistol Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow. "This is going to be a much sweeter picture than our last one (Me, Myself & Irene)," Bobby Farrelly told Empire Online. "It's gonna be a PG-13 movie. Hal (Black) is this incredibly shallow guy. When he was nine years old his dad was dying and he goes in to see him and say goodbye and his dad just gives him horrible advice about life because he's all doped up on morphine. He basically tells him not to care about anything and to judge people on their appearance. 'Later he meets a hypnotist who puts a spell on him and he begins to see the inner beauty of people. He meets this girl who everyone else sees as rather unattractive. But he sees Gwyneth Paltrow, because she's such a wonderful person on the inside, and he falls madly in love with her. Then the spell gets lifted, and what we do here is put Gwyneth in a big prosthetic suit like Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor. She's this big fat girl and he has to decide whether he still loves her for who she is. It's kind of a nice story." Gwyneth Paltrow fat? Now that is an acting challenge. How did she feel about it? "She's game for it," says Farrelly. "She's ready to try some new stuff."