Alexander likes Boston, not baseball

Ask Jason Alexander about acting or the theater and you'll barely be able to keep up with his answers. But don't ask the former "Seinfeld" star about baseball or the Yankees. "People think I have some particular insight into the team or the game," said the actor, whose character George Costanza worked for George Steinbrenner and the Yankees. "Actually I know nothing about the Yankees, I'm not a fan." Good thing, since the Tony Award-winning actor returns to Boston today to help out his alma mater as Boston University celebrates its 25-year affiliation with the Huntington Theatre Company. "I guess that my heart is in the theater more than anywhere else. It's what I trained for when I was a student. My time at [BU] made me want to go into this business," said Alexander, who hosts tonight's Spotlight Spectacular! gala to raise money to support the theater company's youth, education, and community outreach initiatives. As part of his return to campus, Alexander will spend time with students, giving them a front-row perspective on showbiz. "I love to talk to the students who are just getting ready to go out there," said Alexander, who just finished working on a pilot for a TV series that could air this fall. As for the college that he attended for three years before leaving to work full-time as an actor, Alexander said: "I had an amazing time. The town was a large part it, and I have very warm feelings for Boston." And that affection extends to Boston University, the theatre company, and its artistic director, Nicholas Martin. "Somehow the university and Nicky have found a way to keep a good program going and to balance the university's needs with a successful theater company. It's a tough task," said Alexander. "I'm glad I get to come back and help them celebrate."

Mezrich bets ‘21’ actor will win big

After six weeks of filming that took Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, and the rest of the cast of "21" from Chinatown to the People's Republik bar in Cambridge to the Boston University campus, the movie about card-counting MIT students who beat the casinos has finished shooting scenes in Boston. Director Robert Luketic finished with a few scenes on Friday before the gang packed up to get out of town. Filming started earlier this year in Las Vegas for the movie, which is based on Boston author Ben Mezrich's bestseller "Bringing Down the House." "It's been a great process to watch, but even better that so much was filmed in Boston," said Mezrich at an event last week to launch a retooled Stuff @ Night magazine, with Mezrich on the cover. "We've been on the set every day. It's going really well," he said. Mezrich's wife, Tonya, a Boston jewelry designer, was part of some of the early scenes in Vegas, but she said the real action takes place in Boston. "I think people will be surprised how much of it takes place in Boston," she said. Their favorite part was the Sunday that the Mass. Avenue bridge was closed so that Luketic could film scenes of a helicopter landing on the span. "Just to be there. It was so amazing," said Mezrich. The couple, who left last week's party early so they could return home to host a barbecue for some of the cast including Jim Sturgess, and costars Liza Lapira, Aaron Yoo, and Jacob Pitts, had another prediction. "After watching him, Jim is going to be very big. He's the film's star, really. All the action surrounds him," said the author. "People don't know him now, but they will when the movie comes out."

This Elvis is alive and well

When he was a lecturer at Harvard, Elvis Mitchell used to go to the Enormous Room in Central Square to hear one of his students spin. Saturday, the flamboyant former New York Times film critic was back in town, but this time at an enormous house. Mitchell, who lives in LA now, was at a party at Andre Dubus III's impressive place in Newbury following the fete for writer Peter Guralnick at the Newburyport Literary Festival. (Mitchell moderated a panel with "Little Children" author Tom Perrotta and director Todd Field.) At the after-party, Mitchell said he's been busy taping a new talk show for the Turner Classic Network. "We just did [director] Sydney Pollack, and the audience knew him best from 'Will & Grace,' " said Mitchell, sounding amused. Since it was his place, Dubus was the DJ , and played some vintage Allman Brothers. Also making the scene were Perrotta, Field, Guralnick and his wife, Alexandra, "Finn" author Jon Clinch, and Dennis Brennan, who performed at Saturday's event honoring the best-selling biographer of Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke. Guralnick's good buddies Martin Scorsese and Bobbie Ann Mason couldn't make it, but both sent their best wishes.

While in town scouting locations for his "The Great Debaters," director-actor Denzel Washington checked out the Citi Performing Arts Center's Wang Theatre. Co-written by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, who was a visiting artist at MIT earlier this year, "The Great Debaters" tells the story of the 1935 debate team from tiny, all-black Wiley College that beat Harvard. Oscar-winner Washington will direct and play the team's coach, Mel Tolson. Washington's also producing along with Oprah Winfrey. The film is slated to begin shooting next month. . . . Dr. Nancy E. Norman, medical director and interim executive director for Boston's Public Health Commission, was honored by the Fenway Community Health Center Saturday. The Boston-bred Norman was given the Dr. Susan M. Love Award for her work as a health-care provider and advocate who has helped to "raise the standard of care for all women, especially those with racial and ethnic health disparities." . . . In town for the world premiere of the locally filmed "On Broadway," actress Eliza Dushku stayed at the Westin Copley Place Boston. After the screening, which was part of the Independent Film Festival of Boston, Dushku headed to New York City for the Tribeca Film Festival. The Watertown-bred actress stars in "Nobel Son," which screened at Robert DeNiro's festival on Saturday night.

Speaking of the Tribeca Film Festival, Kingston resident Chris Cooper and his wife, writer and "The Sopranos" actress Marianne Leone Cooper, were at the short film program's opening the other night. He's on one of the juries for the New York fest, which got underway last week.

Author and cancer survivor Geralyn Lucas was honored at the gala that raised $500,000 for the Faulkner-Sagoff Breast Imaging and Diagnostic Centre.

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