Work is her workout

New York Lara Flynn Boyle swears she really does eat.

“I love Slim Jims, Hot Tamales, banana cake,” the notoriously thin actress tells Jane magazine for its August issue. “I love pie a la mode oh, God, nothing like it. Roast beef, peas in mashed potatoes, escargot, caviar, peanut butter and jelly, Pop Tarts, I love it all.”

And she doesn’t work out to maintain her slim frame.

“I just work. You know? I get up at 4 in the morning, and I’m on my feet most of the day,” the 32-year-old says. “Certain jobs just naturally keep you the weight you are.”

Boyle co-stars with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in “Men in Black II” as Serleena, a power-hungry alien who comes to Earth disguised as a Victoria’s Secret model.

Writer opens new chapter of life

New York Candace Bushnell is no longer a single girl in the city. The author of “Sex and the City” has gotten hitched.

Bushnell, whose best-selling book was adapted into the Emmy-winning HBO series starring Sarah Jessica Parker, married Charles Askegard July 4 on a wind-swept Nantucket beach, off the Massachusetts coast.

“One has to be open-minded when the right man comes along,” Bushnell, 43, told The New York Times for Sunday’s editions. “And I know it’s freaky, but this just seems like the natural thing to do.”

“We’re both independent, so we complement each other in a good way,” said the groom, a 33-year-old ballet dancer she met eight weeks earlier.

It’s her first marriage and his second.

Athletes fear critics, actors don’t

New York The difference between athletes and movie stars is easy to identify for Samuel L. Jackson.

The actor of such recent fare as “Changing Lanes,” the latest “Star Wars” episodes and the upcoming thriller “XXX,” has had a lot of time to think about the issue while preparing to host the ESPY Awards on ESPN this week.

“Athletes take things more seriously. We have a lot of drama around here with the show because certain athletes won’t come on because ESPN said something bad about them,” he told the July 15 edition of Newsweek magazine, on newsstands Monday.

“As an actor, you get criticized and rejected all day. We don’t take it personally.”

Easy to play ‘Like Mike’

Philadelphia Bow Wow, the rapper-turned-actor, wasn’t too worried about making the transition to the hard court for “Like Mike.”

A basketball fan, the 15-year-old needed less preparation than most when he took the role of Calvin Cambridge, an orphan who stumbles across a pair of old-school high-tops and becomes a basketball star.

“I just had to get adjusted to it, but it’s good I could play a little; I’m happy about my balling. Probably saved Fox a lot of money” by not paying for expensive basketball lessons, he said.