Penelope Cruz has no qualms about answering Mother Nature

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Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz arrive at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards, seemingly without the sudden urge to hightail it to the nearest lavatory.

When nature calls,�Penelope Cruz listens ? even if there's no toilet to be had. In Entertainment Weekly's summer movie preview Issue, the new mom talks about filming "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" while pregnant with her son, Leo. One day of shooting left her and co-star Johnny Depp stuck on a deserted island ? with no loo ? for hours. Fortunately, Cruz wasn't prissy about peeing al fresco. "I had to keep going into the water every 15 minutes," she told EW with laugh.

Fitting in
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The Paris Review�Spring Revel: where famous writers go to seem normal. At the literary magazine's Cipriani 42nd Street gala on Tuesday night, a glowing Times review or two didn't preclude dorky behavior. "Gary Shteyngart's HILARIOUS," we overheard in the ladies room. "He says ?OMG' a lot." After dinner, Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides had to ask a group of young smokers outside the party space how to get to the after-party. Alas, they didn't know either.

Lookout, star coming through
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Go for Goldie! That was the red carpet motto at Good Housekeeping's Shine On Awards at Radio City ? and things got rough-and-tumble as the press fought for time with Goldie Hawn, who had declined to stop for interviews. With crowded quarters due to the rain, it wasn't long before even celeb guests were fighting to stay on their feet. Fran Drescher was almost pushed over by an overzealous reporter trying to get Hawn's attention. And the crush of the crowd cut Trisha Yearwood off in midsentence: "They really accepted Reba [McEntire] in ?Annie Get Your Gun,' so I feel like they are ? I have to get out of the way," she told us as Goldie approached. "They are" ? what? Now we'll never know.

Party of the year
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A party fit�for a fashion princess? An insider tells us that John DeLucie, head chef and partner in Greenwich Village celeb-magnet The Lion, and his team will open the doors of their next restaurant, Crown, with a flourish on May 2. The source tells us that DeLucie and Co. have been "crowing" about how they've "committed" to throwing� an after-party for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute gala that rock royalty Stella McCartney will host. The location certainly works. The restaurant will occupy the E. 81st St. townhouse that was once the site of Bruno Jamais' supper club.�

You're kidding, right?
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We can't help�but be amused when a press reception thrown by the head of a major magazine group in honor of a network news anchor includes a lecture on the kind of questions that reporters can ask there. That's exactly how Hearst magazines editorial director Ellen Levine opened the luncheon she held for her friend Katie Couric on the 44th floor of Hearst headquarters in midtown Wednesday. The snowy-haired exec explained to the press in the room that Couric would happily discuss the book she was promoting, "The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons From Extraordinary Lives," but was "not planning to answer questions about her future life." Levine was referring, of course, to Couric's likely career transition soon from CBS News anchor to talk-show personality. In case anyone was feeling frisky, she added with a hint of steel, "It would be humiliating for me as a hostess to have one of you shut down."

Levine ultimately didn't have to put a sleeper hold on anyone, and Couric wasn't a complete sphinx, either. She read a chapter Levine had contributed to the book that could have served as a parable of her own journey from "Today" show supremacy to the CBS school of hard knocks:� "A media job puts you in a position of power," Couric read aloud. "But leave the seat of power and the praise and flattery stop." Then she smiled and said, "This was a good lesson for me as well."

Contact Gatecrasher:
Frank DiGiacomo: fdigiacomo@nydailynews.com
Carson Griffith: cgriffith@nydailynews.com
Molly Fischer: mfischer@nydailynews.com

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