Photo: Glen Wilson/Universal Pictures

"I was able to give advice on smuggling drugs, scoring drugs, casual self-harm, self-indulgence, bordellos, brothels, life under bridges and heads in the clouds," Russell Brand says, explaining his unique qualifications as the star of Get Him to the Greek, the eagerly awaited Forgetting Sarah Marshall spinoff movie currently in the works. Brand, of course, broke out with American audiences in Marshall, playing Aldous Snow, a big-haired, fresh-from-rehab rock star who spends his days perfecting yoga poses. In Greek, an addled Aldous takes a cannonball dive off the wagon, stuffing his face with drugs, forcing a plane to make an emergency landing in Vegas and canoodling with rocker co-stars Pink and Katy Perry (Oasis' Liam and Noel Gallagher also have rumored cameos). A real-life reformed sex and drug addict, Brand found his own experiences proved essential to the making of the film. Says director and co-writer Nicholas Stoller, "I'd wonder, 'How do you get heroin onto a plane?' And Russell was like, 'You put it up your bum.' So that's what we'd do in the movie." MELISSA MAERZ

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