`MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE' CREW TREATED TO NEWMAN'S ANTICS.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

It's nice to hear that Paul Newman hasn't lost his sense of humor. At age 74, he may no longer engage in the sort of outrageous stunts - like sawing a director's desk in half - that once made him a legend as a practical jokster. But his wit was still very much in evidence during production of Warner Bros. upcoming ``Message in a Bottle.''

For instance, he wasn't above delaying shooting of a scene by saying, ``I just remembered a great joke.'' And, says director Luis Mandoki, ``We'd stand around while he'd tell it. He's very funny - definitely a man who knows how to enjoy life.''

As Newman and Robert Redford once buddied together during films on which they teamed, so did the veteran star pal around with his ``Message'' co-star Kevin Costner, his son in the feature.

``They had a real bond, and were always teasing each other,'' reports Mandoki.

Newman and Costner are teamed with Robin Wright Penn in the romantic drama based on Nicholas Sparks' best seller. It is a four-hankie movie. But don't call it a tear-jerker - not unless you want to upset Mandoki.

He feels the term ``sounds so manipulative, like you jerk tears out of people's eyes. ... Why don't people call comedies laugh-jerkers?'' he asks. And he notes, ``We're living in an era when many people have a hard time dealing with honest emotions - but that's not my problem, and it's not the movie's problem. I still think we need to be moved with the heart.''

And move you, indeed, this ``Message'' does.

The videoland view

Jennifer Love Hewitt heads to New York in March for shooting of the pilot for ``Time of Your Life,'' her planned ``Party of Five'' spin-off series. The trek also gives her a chance to be with Carson Daly, the MTV host with whom she's been maintaining a commuter romance for months. It doesn't sound like she'll have time for an extended get-away with Carson - or anyone - during her ``Party of Five'' hiatus. The very hot 19-year-old actress expects to start ABC's bio-pic of Audrey Hepburn in April, and after that could go immediately into New Line's big-screen romantic comedy ``Marry Me, Jane'' - based on a dream Hewitt had about a wedding planner who falls for a client. And she could be squeezing a Columbia picture into this fall's series schedule, an emotionally wrenching story of a young woman who meets the love of her life after she finds out she's dying.

Poor Al

Casting forces have been looking for a photo double for Al Pacino - in Oliver Stone's ``On Any Given Sunday.'' We're told the double is supposed to mirror Pacino's character, mid- to late-50s, ``a man who has been beaten up by life,'' who has ``a tired feel to him.'' Besides embodying that low-down feeling, Al's look-alike has to be 5-foot-7, 155-160 pounds, and have a 34- to 36-inch waist.

From the inside looking out

Julia Sweeney isn't concerned about her parents' reaction to ``God Said, Ha!'' - the Miramax film recounting her battle with cancer, her brother's death from the disease and her relationship with her family.

Before ``Ha!'' was a movie, it was a one-woman play. It was while the former ``Saturday Night Live'' comedian was performing the show in San Francisco that her parents flew to see it. She says, ``I almost had a heart attack. I had to work my way up to the point where I was telling myself, `I'm an artist. I can't worry about what they're going to say,' '' she says of the potshots she takes at her parents in the story that has her mother and father and brother Michael moving in with her when Michael becomes ill. ``I decided I couldn't go on stage worrying about what their reaction would be, and took them out to dinner before the show and read them the play. They were wonderful. I think they liked the stories about Mike - the fact he is alive during the length of the play.'' The movie opens in New York and L.A. in early February.

The inside track

Songstress Taylor Dayne couldn't be happier that Lifetime Television picked up ``The Harlettes,'' the Bette Midler-produced sitcom in which Dayne plays one of the diva's back-up singers. Dayne, who made her big-screen debut in Warren Beatty's 1994 ``Love Affair,'' after Beatty spotted her on ``The Tonight Show,'' says her acting career has actually rejuvenated her musically. ``You make a record and go out and tour forever. I was losing a sense of myself.'' Now, the singer has the new CD ``Naked Without You'' in stores and has started her own record label. ``It's another level of growth for me as an artist.''

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1) Paul Newman

He's a joker

(2) Jennifer Love Hewitt

Spin-off series next

(3) Julia Sweeney

Parents were supportive