Some roles are meant to be, apparently. In the September More magazine, Felicity Huffman talks about her audition to become Lynette on Desperate Housewives:

"[The producers] said, 'Tell us about motherhood.' " And she told them about being reduced to tears by a group of women when they asked her, "Don't you just love being a mother?" and she replied: " 'No. It's really hard, and I'm losing my mind.' The women pulled back from me as if I'd said, 'I eat babies.' I felt such shame and remorse and humiliation. And I guess that's exactly what they wanted for Lynette."

And then there's this tale from the casting couch. Susan Sullivan (Dharma and Greg, Falcon Crest) tells The New York Times of the time she went to Los Angeles after working on the soap Another World to look for a job at 32. She auditioned for a bit part on the television series S.W.A.T. with "five perfect 18-year-old girls." She was amazed to find that the director was interested.

"You have to appear in a bikini," he told her.

But she was from New York, and her thighs probably jiggled too much, she protested, realizing an instant later that she had just talked herself out of the job. Quickly recovering, she yelled, "But they're not that bad." Then, "I pulled up my skirt and said, 'Help, Mother, I'm in California with my skirt up.' " The director laughed, and she got the part.

She's now appearing onstage in A.R. Gurney's new play, Buffalo Gal .

Speaking of exposed bodies, a once-naked icon of angst-ridden teens has become an angst-ridden teen himself. Except these days, he's fully clothed.

NPR's All Things Considered recently caught up with Spencer Elden. You might not know his name, but you probably know him as the 1-year-old floating toward a dollar bill on the cover of Nirvana's 1991 album, Nevermind, which has sold 26 million copies. His private parts have stretched across millions of fans' walls and been magnified across billboards.

He says that life isn't quite as cool as it was in the early '90s. These days, he says, his peers concentrate on "playing Rock Band on Xbox, like, that's not a real band! That's the difference between the '90s and kids nowadays. Kids in the '90s would actually go out and make a [real] band!"

He's "so over" high school – "Same people, same teachers ... going to your locker, worrying about stupid girls ... I wanna get something going, I wanna travel" – and, having done a stint at military boarding school, is talking about applying to West Point or becoming an artist – or something.

In case all that Olympics coverage has you thinking about doing something in a sport you're pretty good at – say, Wii tennis – consider this word of warning from Johnathan Wendel, a.k.a. "Fatal1ty." The Christian Science Monitor says he's the top professional video-game player in the West. Sure, his income surpassed half a million dollars this year alone. But it's not all bright lights and joysticks.

"It's the same way with the big rock 'n' roll stars," he says. "You think it's all glitz and glamour, but it's a lot of time on the road, away from your family, sleeping in strange places. It's fun for now, but it's also a lot of work."

Compiled by GuideLive staff