[IMG:L]There’s one night every year when stars all across Hollywood are seriously stressing over their all-important wardrobe choice for a celebratory night on the town–and it’s not their next premiere, or even the Oscars. It’s Halloween, where the celebs–and their kids–are sweating their choice of role for trick or treating as much as their next big showbiz part.
Take David Arquette, a hard-core Halloween devotee who still isn’t sure exactly what his costume will be. He told Hollywood.com his disguise will all come down to what best complements the choice of his daughter Coco, 3. “She said she wanted to be a princess, but she’s always a princess!” lamented Arquette.
“It’ll be either Princess Fiona,” agreed Coco’s mom Courteney Cox, “or maybe Pippi Longstocking.”
“Princess Fiona would be good!” Arquette perked up, preferring Shrek’s more orge-ish interpretation of fairytale royalty. No matter what, though, Coco’s in control. “Last year I was the mom in Tarzan–the gorilla,” recalled Cox, “and Coco didn’t like that, so I had to take my costume off.
“Yeah, I was Neptune, and it scared her too,” Arquette remembered glumly. [Find out which costume Coco chose!]
Even a former teenage witch Melissa Joan Hart can’t settle on the right outfit for her 21-month-old son Mason. “He was going to be Bam-Bam,” she says, only to be countered by her husband, Course of Nature frontman Mark Wilkerson: “He IS going to be Bam-Bam.” She frowns. “What did we go shopping for then the other day? I thought he was going to be Nemo now. No one makes Bam-Bam. I got the only Bam-Bam outfit there was and it’s awful.”
You might think other stars have it a little easier when their personal stylist on All Hallow’s Eve isn’t under 10, but Hollywood.com discovered that even as Oct. 31 approaches, uncertainty ruled:
[IMG:R]Paris Hilton (The Simple Life):
“I want to be my character, Amber Sweet, in the movie Repo! The Genetic Opera! I asked Darren [Lynn Bousman] if maybe I could wear that out, but we’re going to see…I bet next year that Amber will be a great Halloween costume.”
Jennifer Love Hewitt (Ghost Whisperer):
“We’re indecisive, but my boyfriend Ross [McCall] and I are thinking about Regis and Kelly.”
Kim Kardashian (Keeping Up With the Kardashians):
“I’m going to be in Hong Kong for Halloween and I just found out yesterday. But I was going to be Princess Jasmine [from Aladdin].”
Vanessa Williams (Ugly Betty):
“We actually dressed up to come [to a charity event this year] and pulled in the parking lot and realized nobody else was dressed up. I had a nun’s outfit on but took it off. I got it from the wardrobe department.”
Angus T. Jones (Two and a Half Men):
“I got this awesome skeleton mask and I’ll just wear a hoodie with it.”
Joanie “Chyna Doll” Laurer:
“I am going as an Arabian princess this year. But I also started taking ballet classes, so I have my whole Swan Lake costume as well. I’m going to go for the Arabian Princess and deck myself out. Everything minus the flying red carpet.”
Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm):
“My daughter wants me to be a pumpkin. Maybe I’ll just do green tights and a big orange shirt and just tell her I’m a lame mother.”
Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse):
“I haven’t done anything in years. I always want to, but something always happens. I don’t know, maybe I’ll go as Amy Winehouse.”
Holly Robinson Peete (Matters of Life and Dating):
“Rodney and I are Sonny and Cher–The “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves Cher,” the hair down to here. We’re way into it.”
Scott Patterson (Gilmore Girls):
“I’m going to go as Lauren Graham. Just kidding.”
[IMG:L]Emmanuelle Chriqui (Entourage):
“Well, I have one that I’ll always kind of go to when in doubt and it’s just my giant afro and I’ll go like all 70s fabulous. Yeah, it’s fun.”
And former Dracula Frank Langella:
“Probably my birthday suit with someone I really like, and the words spoken before the candles are blown out are ‘Trick or treat?’”
Halloween Hall of Fame
Even the film and TV stars who hadn’t settled on their masquerade of choice for 2007 couldn’t resist sharing their all-time favorite costume:
Masi Oka (Heroes):
“I dressed up as a bean burrito. I had purple pillows and I rolled myself in blankets. It was when the Taco Bell commercials just came out”
Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory):
“Last year my ex-boyfriend and I went as Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. It was awesome because I bought a plastic baby and I stuck a cigarette out of its mouth. It was hilarious!”
Kevin Smith
“Nine times out of 10 I wear my long coat and people just assume I’m dressing up as Silent Bob, but I always wear that coat.”
Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother)
“Last year I was a matador but I had a bull horn with blood through my chest. I was a mata-gore.”
Daisy Fuentes (Ultimate Style)
“I had an amazing genie outfit that my mom made me when I was 15.”
Ricardo Chavira (Desperate Housewives)
“I was a cholo for like 10 years because it was so easy to do. Got some bandannas and baggy jeans. Easy.”
Adam Rodriguez (CSI: Miami)
“I played a flasher once. I had the trench coat and a I wore a pair of underwear that I stuffed with a big sock and two tennis balls. I made a fool of myself. My best costume besides that one was a bug. I was an insect one year when I was five. But as an adult I haven’t dressed up in years. I dress up every day for work.”
[IMG:R]Zachary Quinto (Heroes)
“The best Halloween costume I wore was not when I was a child, actually. Two years ago I was a pencil. I wore all yellow, black shoes, brown socks, and tucked my yellow pants into my brown socks, and I painted my face green. I wore a pink hat and wrote Ticonderoga #2 on my back–It was awesome.”
Ricki Lake:
“In sixth grade I was a Pope. Nice Jewish girl. I meant no disrespect. I made a cross out of popsicle sticks.”
Rex Lee (Entourage):
“Probably back when I could fit into like a really cool dress. Back in the day when I was not so heavy I would wear a little black cocktail dress to Santa Monica Boulevard [for the Halloween Costume Carnaval].”
Brigid Brannagh (Army Wives):
“In my Irish Catholic family, my mother started this tradition that one of us would wear a nun costume—we were five sisters and one of us would wear it. She’d put underpants on our head backwards. It was mortifying but we’d win the costume competition every year, whoever wore it.”
Michael Trevino (Cane):
“In third grade I was Beavis from Beavis and Butt-head. I had the time of my life, doing the voice.”
Adam Sandler:
“Last year my daughter was a pickle.”
[IMG:L]Imitation is the Sincerest Form…
Of course, for some Hollywood A-listers, the biggest shocker on Halloween can be encountering fright night revelers dressed as them, or the characters they created. “Oh man, that is the bomb,” said director Quentin Tarantino, who’s seen his share of Trick or Treaters dressed as Reservoir Dogs’ Mr. Brown, and whose films have inspired even more costumes.
“My favorite Halloween of all time was the one after Kill Bill: Vol. 1 came out,” Tarantino told Hollywood.com. “I was in New York, which was partying like it was 1999 because it was the first time since 9/11 where they really let lose and had a big Halloween party, and I was seeing characters like Uma [Thurman], either as the bloody Bride, or in the yellow jump suit. I was seeing guys dressed up like that, I was seeing guys dress up like Elle Driver and Gogo. I couldn’t believe that all my characters were walking around that night. It was the coolest thing!”
“I see it all the time,” said actor Tobin Bell, the horror film stalwart who each year spots trick or treaters costumed as the Saw films’ Jigsaw, and even the maniacal Billy the puppet. “I’d always go over and say hello. They were somewhat speechless when I did that…One of them looked about 10 years old. I’m convinced that he had not seen the film but he had on the little tuxedo and the little white shirt and the red bow tie and the Billy mask. Everyone seemed to know who he was too. They would always say, ‘Oh, that’s Billy. That’s Billy the puppet.’”
–Reporting by Andrea Simpson, Gerri Miller and Fred Topel
