LOS ANGELES – Three weeks ago, Clint Eastwood shared the spotlight with a single chair.

On Wednesday night, he shared it with more than a dozen.

Additional Photos

Cast members Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams pose together at the premiere of “Trouble With the Curve” at the Westwood Village Theater in Los Angeles. The Associated Press

Scarlett Johansson

Fionna Apple

The 82-year-old Oscar winner appeared at the Westwood premiere of his latest film “Trouble With the Curve” — with 16 empty chairs right behind him.

When it was pointed out to him, the Oscar winner chuckled as he quickly and clearly got the reference.

“Oh my God, yes,” he said, with a laugh.

On Aug. 30, Eastwood stood on stage at the Republican National Convention berating an empty chair, representing President Obama.

The chairs were simply set dressing: bleacher seats lined up along the green carpet at the premiere for “Trouble With the Curve,” a family drama about a fading baseball-scout father played by Eastwood and his estranged daughter, played by Amy Adams. They provide the film’s real action, while the game is simply a backdrop.

Representatives from the film’s distributor, Warner Bros., politely requested that the press not ask about Eastwood’s RNC appearance, noting it had gotten enough attention and may be overshadowing the film itself.

“I don’t know,” replied “Curve” director Robert Lorenz. “Some people may come and some people may not because of it. But, in the end, it’s not a political movie. Myself, the other cast (members), we all have different political ideas. We all came together and put those aside. So, I hope people treat it as such.”

Eastwood has addressed the RNC appearance with numerous journalists, but that hasn’t kept it out of mainstream consciousness — perhaps coming to a head last weekend, when comic-actor Bill Hader recreated Eastwood’s empty-chair routine, for laughs, on “Saturday Night Live.”

Eastwood said he saw the “SNL” skit and enjoyed it, and praised Hader. Eastwood also said he’d continue to stump for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

“Sure I would,” Eastwood noted. “I just think we need a change, that’s all.”

Johansson to play Maggie in revival of ‘Cat’

NEW YORK – Scarlett Johansson will tap into her feline side later this year when she plays Maggie the Cat on Broadway.

Producers on Thursday unveiled the Tony Award-winning Johansson in a revival of Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

It will be Johansson’s first time back since winning a Tony in the Arthur Miller play “A View from the Bridge” opposite Liev Schreiber in 2010.

Benjamin Walker, who starred in “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” will play her husband, Brick, Ciaran Hinds plays Big Daddy, and Debra Monk will be Big Mama.

The production will be directed by Tony and Emmy Award-winner Rob Ashford.

“I am so thrilled to return to Broadway and feel incredibly fortunate to be doing so with Rob Ashford and such gifted actors,” Johansson said.

Fiona Apple charged with hashish possession

EL PASO, Texas – Singer-songwriter Fiona Apple was arrested for hashish possession at a West Texas town after a Border Patrol drug-sniffing dog detected marijuana in her tour bus.

A Hudspeth County sheriff’s office spokesman said Apple spent Wednesday night in the county jail and was released Thursday on $10,000 bond.

The spokesman said Apple “had a little tiny amount of pot and hash.” Marijuana possession in small amounts is a misdemeanor, while hashish in any quantity is a felony in Texas.

The Sierra Blanca checkpoint inspects thousands of vehicles daily and sends the town thousands of drug cases yearly.

– From news service reports

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