Live Wire

Mark Strong,the 47-year-old British actor has already played memorable rogues in films such as Revolver,Sherlock Holmes,Kick-Ass and Robin Hood. And he’s about to add to that list—Sinestro,the mentor-turned-nemesis of Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) in the comic-book-based sci-fi film Green Lantern,and Matai Shang,the shape-shifting leader of the Therns in the pulp-novel-inspired John Carter of Mars. Green Lantern will open nationwide on June 17,while John Carter of Mars will release in early 2012. “After a few years,after playing all kinds of characters,really,I struck this rich vein of villains. And unfortunately they’re best fun to play. They get great costumes,they get the best lines” he says.

Peter Gallagher has played sex symbols in movies like While You Were Sleeping (1995),cheating husbands as he did in Sex,Lies and Videotape (1989),villains in The Player (1992) and supportive dads as he did in The O.C. (2003-2007). However,it took him until age 55,to play a bureaucrat. Not that he is any ordinary bureaucrat,he plays Arthur Campbell,director of the Clandestine Service Department at the Central Intelligence Agency. Playing Campbell in the TV show Covert Affairs,he still manages to inject the role with sex appeal. When the series returns on June 7 for the second season,he will have his share of intimate moments with a fetching CIA operative played by Kari Matchett.

Sweet Valley High: The young adult fiction series by Francine Pasca,will soon have a follow up,St Martins Press announced. Tentatively titled The Sweet Life,it will be published as a digital-only serial beginning next spring and will be released in monthly installments to be published online,mimicking the original cliff-hanger form of the original series.

St. Martin’s expects that the installments,which will be approximately 20,000 words each,will especially be read on mobile phones.