BEYONCE KNOWLES and SHAKIRA continue to dominate the European singles chart - their duet Beautiful Liar is the continent's number one single for the fifth week running. Nelly Furtado's Say It Right climbs three places up the chart again to take this week's number two spot, knocking Avril Lavigne down to number three with Girlfriend. Timbaland's collaboration with Justin Timberlake and Furtado, Give It To Me, drops a position to fourth place, while Rihanna Feat. Jay-Z are at five with Umbrella. Linkin Park are enjoying a second week at the top of the European albums chart with Minutes To Midnight, while Michael Buble sits at number two with Call Me Irresponsible. Mika's Life In Cartoon Motion is in third place, while Maroon 5's It Won't Be Soon Before Long and Nelly Furtado's Loose are at numbers four and five respectively.
Shakira is looking to take a long, long break -- at least from music -- according to insiders who work with the multi-Grammy-winning, international singing star. She just wrapped her Oral Fixation tour with a record-breaking concert in Plaza Del Zocalo, Mexico. She did some 111 dates in Europe, America, Africa and Asia, and her rep says she isn't even thinking about her next album at this point. Not that she needs to. Her 2005 CD, "Oral Fixation Vol. 2," has sold more than eight million copies worldwide, and she's also currently on the top of the charts with "Beautiful Liar," her duet with Beyonce.
Now the sexy Colombian singer appears ready to give her acting chops a workout. Although she is not attached to Alfonso Arau's "Dare to Love Me" feature about 1920s tango legend Carlos Gardel -- as has been erroneously reported -- she was recently in active discussions for a role in a Mike Nichols film. As things turned out, she couldn't do it because of her tour schedule. Now she's back to looking at scripts.
The right director is a must, she feels. "Usually singers are good interpreters, but not good actors," she said a while back, "so you need to get with a good actors' director. I would have to if the day comes when I do acting."
Hmmm. A blonde Latina bombshell with an international built-in fan base? Yes, that rumbling sound you hear is Hollywood beating a path to Shakira's door.
MADNESS TO HER METHOD: Gabrielle Anwar tells us she got herself into trouble experimenting with method acting recently, but clams up fast when asked for details. The beautiful English actress, who's also in Showtime's "The Tudors" series, plays Fiona, a former IRA terrorist, in USA Network's June 28-debuting drama, "Burn Notice." She recounts, "I took it upon myself to see what would happen if I really did believe I was a fearless IRA terrorist and started staying in character at the end of the day."
The show shoots in Florida, where Anwar says, "I started staying at the notorious Shore Club Hotel in South Beach, which is inevitably troublesome, and some days I wasn't exactly sure whether I woke up as Fiona or Gabrielle. I think there were a couple of instances where I was making choices that would not have come from a single mother of three living in a mountain community in California." Like what, for instance? "Things that I will never, ever tell you," she says with a wicked laugh, then adds, "Now I'm quite happy leaving my character with my costume and my shoes when I go home at the end of the day. It's called acting."
"Burn Notice" stars Jeffrey Donovan as a blacklisted Special Ops agent who uses his training to find the reason he's been fired, as well as to help people who can't go to the police. The troupe is only on episode three of a 12-episode commitment, and Anwar says, "being away from my children is the toughest part" of Florida location shooting. "They're 13, 6 and 3. My oldest could care less whether I'm on this side of the country, but my little ones are struggling. Once they're out of school they'll join me." She says she's missing them terribly but couldn't see uprooting them. "They have soccer practice, ballet … and they're very attached to their father, who's very loving. At some point it's a question of are you taking them for your own benefit instead of theirs?"
FLY GUY: Political pundit Tucker Carlson may get into many heated debates while filming his MSNBC show "Tucker," but he tells us that he begins each day in the most peaceful way possible. "I try to go fly fishing every day. It's a great way to start the day. It's good for you," he points out. "I have a completely happy life."
FOR THE RECORD: Former KISS drummer and founding member Peter Criss' new CD "One for All" (not "All for One" as we erroneously referred to it the other day) is both personal and autobiographical, particularly the title tune, which is a paean to 9/11. "I'm a New Yorker, and the day 9/11 happened I was leaving church," he recalls. "My wife called me and told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center, and I sat there and watched in shock. I was overwhelmed, and it really freaked me out. I did a bunch of benefits at the time with Paul Shaffer, Chevy Chase, Natalie Cole … I sort of vented my anger in this song and thank God as an artist I could do that."
The tune features the Church of Transfiguration Boys Choir. "My wife and I talked about putting children on the song, as they're our future," says Criss. "I really wanted just some street kids from a little church kind of like where I grew up. Then we found these kids that went to a school with the same name as the school I went to! I was like 'Lord, this is too creepy.' But I know I asked for it, and they sang like angels."
