"I've spent most of the writer's strike ... writing. Wait, that sounds terrible!" she said, standing backstage Monday at the Max Azria show at Fashion Week.
"But I'm not part of the union, so it doesn't matter," explained the 34-year-old strawberry blond, known as much for her failed engagement to Marilyn Manson as for her roles on the TV show "Charmed," or as a go-go dancer with a machine gun for a leg in last year's film "Grindhouse."
Actors Chloe Sevigny, right, and Anne Hathaway attend the Miss Sixty 2008 Fall Collection during Fashion Week, in this Feb. 3, 2008, file photo in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)
Manson has since gone younger — the singer is currently dating 20-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood. McGowan, meanwhile, has been nursing an interest in slightly older men — the subject of her writing project.
"I'm writing a TV show about old men. I have kind of a yen for them. It's going to be like a 'Golden Girls,' but with men," said McGowan, for whom no writing credits are listed on IMDB.
So why the geezers?
"They are just so funny and hilarious and sweet and kind of crotchety," she said. "I'll probably have to cast younger and then make up the actors to be older, because my dream actors are all dead. I mean, I'd love to use Jack Lemon. But he's dead. Or James Garner! Actually, he's not dead. Yet."
Katrina Bowden, left, sits with socialite Nicky Hilton, center, and Laura Katzenberg at the fall 2008 collection of Sass & Bide during Fashion Week in New York, in this Feb. 2, 2008, file photo. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano, file)
McGowan has been a regular in the tents this week, but not as steady an attendee as Sophia Bush, who has racked up more front-row seat sightings than Vogue editix Anna Wintour.
Before heading to her seat at Ports1961 after the Max Azria show, the "One Tree Hill" actress even asked a makeup artist backstage to take a moment away from the models to put some powder on her nose. Other Ports1961 attendees included actresses Mandy Moore, Aisha Tyler and Emily Deschanel.
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PARTY DRESS
Monday night was an evening of parties for fashionistas in New York.
While actress Chloe Sevigny hosted a party at Webster Hall to promote her new clothing line, veteran designer Patricia Field, with her fire engine red hair, attended The Blonds rhinestone and whimsy-inspired fashion show at the Prince George Ballroom, scoffing and rolling her eyes whenever anyone asked her about the upcoming "Sex and the City" movie, for which she did the costumes.
A little further downtown, socialite Nicky Hilton sat on the top of a booth at designer Charlotte Ronson's after-party at the club Butter, wielding a cigarette. Across the room, New York City socialite-turned-handbag designer Tinsley Mortimer, wearing an aqua-colored sleeveless dress and a thick red belt, explained that she doesn't get insulted when people say how she's "big in Japan."
"For me when people say 'Oh you are so popular in Japan,' it's like the biggest compliment ever," she said. "I work very hard and I feel very rewarded for my work when I go there. Some of my most cherished moments have been in Japan."
Meanwhile, at the Diesel extravaganza, guests flocked to take naughty photos at the photobooth that was onsite while bartenders dealt with petulant partygoers. One bartender complained that one of the Olsen twins had yelled at him when he said he didn't have any vodka.
But which one?
He said he couldn't tell them apart.
