ASPEN, Colo. - Cheech and Chong may have joked about marijuana in their movies, but the comedians say they didn't touch the stuff when the cameras were rolling.
"We tried one time and we wasted so much film," said Tommy Chong, recalling a scene in "Up in Smoke." "We were in the car waiting for the cue, you know. And the camera's rolling and we're sitting there, you know, and neither one of us heard the cue."
Chong and former partner Cheech Marin appeared together for the first time in 20 years at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.
Chong said he isn't ashamed of introducing millions of Vietnam-era kids to marijuana. "When you think of how many kids died drinking alcohol, I feel I've saved millions of lives," he said.
Marin said their humor was appreciated by an unexpected group: "Cops were our biggest fans. Because they dealt in what we were dealing with everyday, but in reality... they saw the essential humor and they laughed."
Marin and Chong, who recently completed a nine-month sentence for trying to sell marijuana pipes on the Internet, said they are writing two new films, "Grumpy Old Stoners" and "Lord of the Smoke."
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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Fresh off his job as the nation's first homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge says he's getting used to seeing people with earpieces and no black suits.
"I've got guys with stuff coming out of their ears and you think, 'Man, they're probably listening to an iPod,' and I think they're security," he said.
Ridge, who had an official driver during nearly seven years as Pennsylvania governor, said he's getting a thrill from driving the family minivan, despite some ribbing from his teenage son.
"My son says 'Dad, you're driving a 'mommy car','" Ridge said with a laugh Friday night. "I said, 'Yeah, the "mommy car" has gotten you, your sister and the three dogs around for a long time, and your dad's enjoying it.'"
Ridge's resignation took effect Feb. 1. The president has nominated Michael Chertoff, a judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals, to succeed him.
Ridge, 59, said he enjoys spending more time with his son and daughter, as well as other aspects of life outside of government.
"It's kind of neat.... I took my shoes off when I took a commercial flight. I waited for my luggage like everybody else," he said.
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VIRGINIA, Minn. (AP) - Woody Harrelson is taking ice skating lessons and Charlize Theron is doing her best to stay warm as they begin a new film here.
"It's really beautiful but I am from Africa, which is a very hot continent," Theron said of Minnesota. She said she enjoyed watching a recent snowfall "from the inside of a house."
In the film, Theron plays a female miner who pursues a precedent-setting sexual harassment case. Harrelson is her hockey-playing lawyer, and he's taking skating lessons from a local high school coach.
"Currently, I suck," Harrelson said.
The film, which is still untitled, is directed by Niki Caro, who also directed the critically acclaimed "Whale Rider."
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ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - A panel discussion on whether cable debate shows like CNN's recently canceled "Crossfire" have screamed themselves out of business ended in - what else - a shouting match.
Panelists including comedian Janeane Garofalo, conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham and former White House press secretary Joe Lockhart were alternately cheered and jeered at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Saturday.
Garofalo rankled some audience members with her comment that not only does "the Republican message dominate the public conversation, but that in my opinion, 90 percent of it is false."
Ingraham retorted, "The American left is so unwilling to look inward to see what's wrong with their party."
The format may be part of the problem, said panel moderator Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Scarborough Country."
"If we had 1½ hours to debate Iraq, we'd have had a more nuanced discussion. How do you debate Iraq in three-and-one-half minutes?" he said.
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BERLIN (AP) - French movie icon Catherine Deneuve was glad to see co-star Gerard Depardieu playing a man on an obsessive quest to regain his first love.
"It's true that obsessive love like that is generally something for women," she told reporters at the Berlin International Film Festival Saturday.
"It really touched me that Gerard Depardieu is a very sensitive and delicate person in that big shell of his."
The two star in "Les temps qui changent" (Changing Times), directed by Andre Techine. In the film, Depardieu's Antoine hopes to find Cecile, played by Deneuve, in Tangiers, Morocco, and win her back from her Moroccan husband.
In a nod to the two stars' long acquaintance, Depardieu's character carries a photo of the two stars taken from an earlier movie.
"He is someone with whom... I can always create an intimate link," Deneuve said.
The festival's top Golden Bear award will be awarded Feb. 19.
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