Twenty-four-year-old Brittany Murphy is picking up speed. She’s co-starring in 8 Mile, directed by Curtis Hanson (Wonder Boys, L.A. Confidential), with bad-boy rapper (and rumored love interest) Eminem, and the advance word is that it’s going to be the film to beat this fall. She’s got Just Married, a romantic comedy, in the can (“I get to play a big, fluffy, blonde girl for once,” she notes). And she spent the summer in New York shooting Molly Gunn, her first title role. “It wasn’t too tough,” she says. “Molly has a hard time holding her tongue, and I’ve been pretty brassy lately. My edit button has been stuck.”
8 Mile
(Universal; November 8)