Garcia called casino-owner role good fit

NEW YORK -- Shooting "Ocean's Eleven" at the Bellagio in Las Vegas made it easy for Andy Garcia to fall into the role of casino owner Terry Benedict.

"I'd go on the set -- this is my casino," he said. "We were shooting in pit No. 5, which is sort of the high-end pit, and I'd look around and the place was packed not only with our extras, but beyond that, the casino was functioning so it was really, it was like an actor's dream."

But the 45-year-old actor said he never got a chance to gamble while he was there.

"I like to play blackjack here and there, but it was odd that when I left I said, 'You know what? I never sat down at a table,"' Garcia said. "I guess I was delusional enough to know that it was my casino -- why would I sit down at my own table?"

"Ocean's Eleven," co-starring George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, is in theaters now.

Tyson leaves hotel, journalists behind him

HAVANA -- Mike Tyson checked out of a Havana hotel early Wednesday, a day after witnesses said he tossed glass Christmas ornaments at journalists trying to interview him.

There were no reports of injuries, arrests or serious damage following the Tuesday evening dispute.

The former heavyweight champion reportedly was headed to the airport for a flight on Air Jamaica after checking out at dawn, workers at the Hotel Melia Habana said.

Tyson arrived at the oceanfront hotel Monday evening with two bodyguards and stayed in a suite priced around $500 a night, the hotel workers said.

Witnesses said that Tyson became angry when a small group of reporters approached him in the lobby.

They said Tyson grabbed a few large glass balls from the Christmas tree near the entrance and lobbed them at the reporters, who left shortly afterward.

In the last 12 months, Tyson has fought just once, knocking out Brian Nielsen in six rounds in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Oct. 13. He's scheduled to face WBC-IBF heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis in April.

Tyson was accused of sexual assaults twice in three months although prosecutors chose not to file charges against him. He also was fined $200,000 for refusing a pre-fight drug test when he faced Andrew Golota in October, 2000. He tested positive for marijuana after the fight, and his license to fight in Michigan was suspended for three months.

Some things on Nash missing, says Crowe

NEW YORK -- Certain aspects of John Nash's life weren't explored in the movie "A Beautiful Mind," in which Russell Crowe stars as the tortured mathematician who overcame schizophrenia and won the Nobel prize.

One of them, Crowe said, was "a certain adventurousness in his sexuality," which Sylvia Nasar suggests in her biography of Nash.

"And that was a big question for us, how far to go into that," Crowe tells Entertainment Weekly for its Jan. 4 issue. "It was relevant to his character, but we didn't want to imply that there was any possibility that schizophrenia and homosexuality are related. That would be ridiculous."

Sean Penn lashes out at talk-show hosts

NEW YORK-- Talk-show hosts are just as despicable as terrorists in Sean Penn's world.

"I think that people like the Howard Sterns, the Bill O'Reillys and to a lesser degree the bin Ladens of the world are making a horrible contribution," Penn says in the February issue of Talk magazine, calling Fox News Channel's O'Reilly "an embraced pariah."

"He's a grumpy, self-loathing joke," the actor says of O'Reilly. "There's a long history of people who capitalize on the lowest common denominator of people's impulses."

-- From wire reports