BEATTY DOES IT ALL - AGAIN - IN NEW PROJECT.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Warren Beatty quietly started work late last week on the film they're currently calling ``The Beatty Project'' - in which he'll play a disillusioned politician who hires a hit man to kill him, then has a change of heart when he falls in love.

The beautiful Halle Berry will play the object of his affections - with their characters' interracial romance putting a strain on his career.

This marks Beatty's first time before the big-screen cameras since he teamed with wife Annette Bening in the poorly received 1994 ``Love Affair.'' He has written and is producing and directing, as well as starring in the new film - the first time he's juggled such duties since his 1981 ``Reds.''

The bulk of shooting on the project will be done here in L.A., on the 20th Century Fox lot.

We've got news for you: The film adaptation of the musical ``Into the Woods,'' stalled in pre-production at Columbia, now looks like it could be before the cameras in January with Billy Crystal and Susan Sarandon headlining. Penny Marshall, who was tentatively attached as director, is out, and Rob Minaoff (``Lion King'') will helm from a script by Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz.

Here 'n' there: John Goodman, who managed to squeeze in shooting of a few episodes of ``Roseanne'' before leaving for London filming of his big-screen ``The Borrowers'' early this month, expects to resume the series - at least for a while - when he wraps his overseas assignment in November.

Goodman's wife, Annabeth, and their 6-year-old daughter were with him in London until recently. They've now returned to the States, but Annabeth expects to be back in London with John to celebrate their seventh wedding anniversary next month.

``My Fellow Americans,'' in which Jack Lemmon and James Garner play two ex-U.S. presidents, has won a vote of confidence from Paramount. The studio's giving the flick a choice Christmas-week debut - just, as we reported, it is giving Shirley MacLaine's ``Evening Star.''

It's a different world: Corbin Bernsen, Adam Baldwin and Bobbie Phillips are becoming ensconced in the NASA community at Cape Canaveral, Fla., where they're shooting their syndicated ``The Cape'' series about the astronaut program.

``Almost everyone living here has something to do with NASA,'' says Phillips, ``and the sense of family these people have is amazing. It's kind of like `Leave It to Beaver.' ... People know each other's first names. ... I didn't even know that existed anymore, I've been so jaded in L.A.''

The actress and the rest of ``The Cape'' cast got to tour the space facilities at NASA before shooting. ``The guy who took us around started talking about the Challenger (the space shuttle that exploded in 1986), and tears welled up. He said, `I'm really sorry, I thought enough time had passed that I could talk about it.' He took us to a room full of posters the astronauts' children had drawn after the explosion, and they said things like `Everything's going to be OK' and `You're in heaven now' and it made everybody just break down. ... We all just bawled.''

Going to the dogs: ``You have to wake up as an actor and see if you can compete,'' says Rutger Hauer of working with his canine co-star in the upcoming remake of Jack London's ``Call of the Wild.'' ``I never thought he would be such a great actor - and I'm not kidding. ... What they ended up being able to get out of the dog was really amazing.''

Hauer, on the phone from Berlin, where he's shooting HBO's ``Hostile Waters'' pic about the 1986 collision of Soviet and American submarines off the coast of the United States, adds that he and his four-legged ``Call of the Wild'' co-star got to bond before shooting began. ``Of course, we didn't sleep in the same trailer. That would have been a bit much. ... I wouldn't have minded, but the dog had his pride.''

The videoland view: OK, so ``Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman'' (Jane Seymour) is now all married and familied up with her beloved mountain man, Sully (Joe Lando). That doesn't mean it's going to be drab domesticity. This week, ``We're shooting a pretty sexy episode with Michaela and Sully in a waterfall,'' reveals Jane. ``The thing is, we're listening to the fans who've said they want more love scenes, and more of the love story between Michaela and Sully. Sully is still a mysterious man who is only somewhat domesticated. There is still an enormous amount of friction between them.'' And passion.

MEMO: The Celebrities column appears Monday through Friday.