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Who wasn't rooting for Virginia Madsen at last year's Oscars? Long exiled to the basic cable MOW crapheap, Madsen managed to turn all of us into nebbish, paunchy, wannabe writer losers in love with her rhapsodic Sideways monologues on the virtues of good wine. So when she was hand-plucked by Harrison Ford to appear opposite the aging, awards presentation-mangling movie star in his latest "my family's in peril and damn it I'm going to save them!" flick, we were all toasting her rapid gondola-unassisted ascent to the peak of A-list mountain. But then we read reports like this one:

SIDEWAYS star VIRGINIA MADSEN was so desperate to kiss HARRISON FORD in new movie FIREWALL she locked lips with the aging movie star on the first day of filming.


The actress was handpicked by Ford to play his wife in the thriller and wasted no time in letting him know how grateful she was - and just how much she liked the INDIANA JONES star.

She recalls, "I kind of snuck the kiss in there; he didn't know that I was gonna do it. It was my first day on the set. I thought I'd just go for it."

Director RICHARD LONCRAINE liked the impromptu kissing scene and decided to keep it in the movie, but neither he, nor Ford, would accommodate Madsen's wishes for more passion in the film.

She adds, "I demanded deeper kissing but they wouldn't go for that. I just thought we don't have an opportunity to embrace in this movie and I wanted to see a marriage. I didn't want to just be the screen wife in the background."

While we commend Madsen on so gamely diving into character that she could work past the scotch fumes in order to fully sate her Indiana jones, we must admit that part of us worries she might quickly wear out her welcome if she continues to brazenly launch herself at her co-stars in such a manner. The last thing an above-the-title Hollywood legend needs to see when stepping out of his double banger is his leading lady at the foot of the stairs, seductively spraying a tube of Binaca into her mouth, and demanding to know what her "motivation is not to slip you the tongue when I hear the word 'action.'"