Monica Bellucci's got no problems showing her body

Sultry Italian star Monica Bellucci appears in the year's weirdest sex scene in Shoot 'Em Up, which opens in Glasgow this week.

She and co-star Clive Owen are in the middle of a steamy sex session when a gang of hitmen burst in but, in a piece of immaculate choreography, Owen continues what he's doing with Bellucci and also manages to start firing away at the bad guys.

The Italian star says she thought the scene was sexy.

"It was kind of crazy," she says. "What I like is that it's violent but at the same time it's sexy and it's funny. It wasn't very easy but it's interesting. When you see the movie, it is one of the greatest moments because I have never seen something like that in a movie," she added.

Although she now has a young daughter, the 33-year-old who also starred in Tears Of The Sun and the Matrix trilogy, says she has no qualms about doing these sexy scenes.

"I am not ashamed of my body," she says, "and I don't mind doing these scenes. I think I want to do them while I still can.

"Anyway," she adds, "This one was with Clive Owen so who wouldn't want to do a scene like that." Bale's home truths

Christian Bale is the last person anyone should come to for a chat about his new movie 3:10 To Yuma. The Western in which he co-stars with Russell Crowe is a remake of a 1957 film but Bale had no idea.

He says he knows nothing about Westerns.

"I feel people expect me to have a great knowledge of westerns, but I don't," says the 33-year-old who insists he doesn't especially like films.

"I'm not a movie buff. It's been an awfully long time since I've gone to a movie," he says. "I have nothing against them. I would just say I've never been an avid fan.

"I love acting in them, I just avoid them."

Not that it prevents him from being very good in 3:10 To Yuma and doubtless in next summer's The Dark Knight, his second Batman film.

Bale can next be seen in Todd Haynes' I'm Not There, playing one of the many Bob Dylans the film presents, before he appears in The Dark Knight.

But when he's not working, he likes to exercise what he says is a vital acting muscle - imagination.

"I've always been somebody who can sit there daydreaming. Which has been helpful for acting." I, Leonardo, could be the next Claudius...

Can you see Leonardo Di Caprio with a severe limp and barely uttering a sentence without a stutter?

Hollywood producer Scott Rudin can, which is why he has won a hot bidding war for the film rights to I, Claudius.

The rights to the Robert Graves' book were with the BBC, which produced an acclaimed classic serial with Derek Jacobi in the title role. The show made a household name of Jacobi, who played the weak member of the Caesar dynasty who managed to outlast everyone.

After the small screen success of both series of HBO's Rome, the race is on to find more Roman properties.

Rudin got involved in a bidding war with the likes of Warner Bros and Universal for the rights and eventually paid more than £1 million.

His plan is to cast Leonardo Di Caprio as the wily would-be emperor who survives amidst the debauchery of his more depraved relatives like Nero and Caligula.

William Monahan who wrote The Departed and Kingdom Of Heaven, has apparently been approached to write the screenplay.

There's no word yet from DiCaprio, but with a Hollywood strike looming if he doesn't agree soon it could be two years before the film goes into production.