If offered James Bond role, ' I have no idea how I'd react,' British actor Clive Owen tells Newsweek

NEW YORK (Newsweek/ www.Newsweek.com) - The cover story in the November 29 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, November 22) looks at TV's guilty-pleasure hit "Desperate Housewives," and how the racy series took over pop culture. Plus, the challenges Condoleezza Rice inherits as the newly nominated secretary of state, Rice's relationship with President Bush, and Porter Goss's early moves as CIA director. Also, John Malone makes trouble for his old friend Rupert Murdoch and British actor Clive Owen answers rumors that he's the next 007.

British actor Clive Owen tells Newsweek that although his name has been floated as the next James Bond, he has never been approached by MGM studio about playing that role. "It's nothing but rumor, and to be brutally honest, if they did come out and offer it to me, I have no idea how I'd react," Owen says in the November 29 issue (on newsstands Monday, November 22). Regarding a potential James Bond project, Owen goes on to say: "Well, there are far worse things to be associated with."

Owen's performance in Mike Nichols's new film "Closer" puts the 40-year-old in serious Academy Award contention for best supporting actor, reports Senior Writer Sean Smith. Owen, who starred in last summer's "King Arthur," gets some of the best lines in this Oscar contender, Smith writes. Over the course of the film, two couples (played by Jude Law and Natalie Portman, and Owens and Julia Roberts) meet, fall in love and then destroy each other, and themselves, with infidelity, narcissism and vicious honesty. But "for all the brutality in 'Closer,' there's some wicked humor in it," Owen says.

Julia Roberts, who plays a photographer involved with both Owen and Law, thinks Owen is mighty witty himself, Smith reports. "You will see none of the pictures of us on set together, because in every single one I look like this," Roberts tells Newsweek, opening her mouth wide in mock hysterical laughter, and then laughing for real. "Clive had me cracking up constantly."