Avril Lavigne is featured in the June 2008 issue of the German version of Maxim magazine. And, as usual, most of the photos found in foreign magazines in foreign countries are recycled from the US versions. If you missed Avril’s original photos in Maxim, these found in Germany are not all that different.

What else can I say? Avril still looks radically sweet in these pics!

Elsa Pataky has fantastic, sexy legs. Her boyfriend, Adrien Brody, was so smitten by her that he had proposed to her. They might marry in 2009. They have been sharing a home in New York for some time. Elsa has a new, promising role in the new “Captain Thunder.” She would take the character of Sigrid of Thule, a Viking princess. Elsa was popular in her native Spain and Europe. She might become a mega star in the US if Captain Thunder makes it as a box office hit.

Nothing against the 818, says the star of TV’s “Ugly Betty,” who grew up in Woodland Hills and attended El Camino Real High School, but she had plans.

“The Valley reminds me of my childhood,” says Ferrera, who appears in the just-released film “Under the Same Moon.”

“I had a really rough time through high school. I don’t think I liked myself very much. High school is a very hard place to like yourself. It’s easier for some people, but it wasn’t very easy for me.”

Ferrera chalks up her troublesome high-school years, in part, to a rare single-mindedness of purpose about who she was and what she wanted to do.

Simply put, long before she entered her teens, Ferrera knew she wanted to go to college and she wanted to act, not necessarily in that order. When people asked about her backup plans, Ferrera would shake her head.

“I’m very much in awe of how young children have such bravery to dream so big. They just don’t question it,” she says. “I never questioned it. I used to lie in bed and say, `I don’t know how I’m going to get there. I just know I’m going to.’ I was, like, 10 and thinking, `What is taking so long? Why has my life not started?’ ”

Times have indeed changed. The woman who utters these words from the terrace of a Beverly Hills hotel is a USC graduate with a degree in international relations. She’s also an Emmy, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe Award winner. In its two seasons, the telenovela-inspired sitcom “Ugly Betty” has become something of an international phenomenon.

Ferrera turns 24 in April, and she’s still asking questions. The last two years have been prosperous and fulfilling, and they have also made the actress look inward.

“There is no possible way someone standing on the outside could know what I’ve been through in my life,” says Ferrera. “Sure, it looks like a Cinderella ball. It’s an amazing show, and the fame and the awards and recognition, but those are just the side effects of what, for me, is truly fulfilling. I work really hard for something I’m really proud of.

“There’s kind of a calm about it for me,” she continues. “There are so many ways to become frightened of your own success. It’s a big learning lesson in questioning why do I do this and what is it for? And what do I want out of it?”

She is equally even-keeled when the topic of being a role model is broached. “Ugly Betty” has been embraced by the gay community and Latinos alike. Women - and their young daughters - have lauded the notion of a TV heroine who isn’t a size 0 and who doesn’t have the snappiest taste in fashion.

Ferrera, though, has stopped reading message boards and blog notices. She’s grateful and gracious to fans who embrace underdog Betty’s struggle as their own, but there’s a limit to how much of a crusader Ferrera is willing to be.

“I don’t make every decision in my life based on, `Am I doing what’s right for the Latino community? Am I doing what’s right for young women everywhere? Am I doing what’s right for curvy girls in Hollywood?’ I don’t want to be responsible for that,” she says. “I want to do what’s right for me, and I think that’s what everyone should do.”

Outside of “Betty,” Ferrera has kept plenty busy. In addition to “Under the Same Moon,” she appears in the just released Spanish-language hostage drama “Toward the Darkness,” which she also produced and which began as a friend’s short film while Ferrera was at USC.

Last summer, she filmed the sequel to “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” based on the Ann Brashares novels, with fellow “Pants” alums Alexis Bledel, Amber Tamblyn and Blake Lively. She also spent part of the summer campaigning for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

No, she doesn’t expect voters will blindly follow Betty Suarez to the polls, but as Ferrera notes, “I’m lucky enough that when I talk, maybe a few cameras will follow me.”

“I’ve done the work and educated myself, and I’ve been very active in this election because I think everyone should be,” she says. “If cameras weren’t following me, I’d probably still be involved in this election. Nobody would care, but I would still be trying to do what I could to bring attention to the candidate I believe in.”

She recently went back to the set of “Ugly Betty,” which returns to ABC on April 24. In the first original episode since the conclusion of the Writers Guild of America strike, misfit fashion magazine secretary Betty Suarez will celebrate a birthday.

“I don’t really know what else is going on in Betty’s life,” Ferrera says. “That’s one of the reasons I’m anxious to get back.”

Ferrera basically has a cameo in “Under the Same Moon,” playing a non-Spanish-speaking American who tries to earn money for her brother’s college tuition by smuggling Mexican babies over the U.S. border. Ferrera’s character, Marta, ends up transporting 9-year-old Carlitos (played by Adrian Alonso), whose quest to track down his mother in Los Angeles is at the heart of the film.

Ferrera received the script when it was titled “Immigrant Boy.” Put off by the title, she tried - unsuccessfully - to use the script as a sleep aid.

“I thought I’d be asleep by page 4. It usually works,” she recalls. “Of course, at 2 a.m., I’m on the last page, crying. I just really connected to it on a very human level. I just thought it was a perfect way to get a human connection to what immigration is all about.

“Yes, it’s deemed a crime and it’s illegal,” she adds, “but to call this 9-year-old boy who wants to be with his mother a criminal, something about that seems not complete.”

She filmed her part in May 2006, shortly after the premiere of the “Ugly Betty” pilot. Ferrera was far less well-known then, although “Same Moon” director Patricia Riggen knew the actress’ work from her 2002 debut film, “Real Women Have Curves.”

“Basically, I felt that she was the only one I could have who would represent that generation of Latinos,” says Riggen.

“In the movie, the characters show us that the struggle doesn’t end for Latinos when they get a passport. (Ferrera’s) character was doing something not good for a good reason, which makes her very human.”

Riggen sees Ferrera as “one of those actors that are going to always do challenging stuff and not stay with easy or sweet roles.”

Ferrera agrees.

“There is so much growth in my work that needs to be done,” she says. “I need to live more so I have more to bring to my life.”

Mary McCormack tells us that shooting the USA network’s “In Plain Sight,” debuting June 1, “I honestly for the first time understood why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture.  I got pregnant between the pilot and the series production.  Luckily, they decided to wait for me.  But when we started shooting, the hours were really tough because I had a not even two-month-old and I’d be up all night with her and up all day working.”

McCormack, now on Broadway starring in “Boeing-Boeing,” also has a three-year-old with her husband, “Brothers & Sisters” producer Michael Morris — who flew in to Albuquerque, N.M. location to see Mary and the girls on weekends.  That family separation was another challenge.

Still, she loved playing Mary Shannon, a U.S. Marshal attached to the government’s witness protection program.  “I like her because she’s a really complex character – good at her job, cranky, sort of rants.  It felt to me like a part written for a guy,” says Mary.  Creator David Maples “is such a good writer.  I love that he just randomly made her cheap as well.  She never wants to pick up a bill.  And her boyfriend (Cristian de la Fuente) is way more mushy than she is.  When anyone talks about feelings she just cringes, though deep down, she wants to be touched.”

SO THAT EXPLAINS IT: James Van Praagh, the psychic/medium who created “Ghost Whisperer,” claims in his new book, “Ghosts Among Us,” that people are surrounded by ghosts every day and Hollywood is no exception.  In fact, he wants to send the book to Britney Spears as he is certain she is not alone.  ”I see people’s energy around them and Britney Spears has two low-level ghosts attached to her.  One has tattoos all over him and the other is kind of creepy looking,” says Van Praagh and, no, he’s not talking about Kevin Federline.  ”Around every living thing is the aura, which is the electromagnetic bubble protecting us, but if someone is overly involved with drugs or drinking and isn’t taking good care of themselves, what happens is that little pinprick holes appear in the aura and these lower level entities who have nothing else to do but hang around the earth can attach themselves and influence that person.  I talk in the book how you can get rid of them.”

This certainly isn’t Van Praagh’s first brush with celebrities as his devotees include Cher, Shirley MacLaine, Barbara Walters, Goldie Hawn, and most recently Heath Ledger.  Yes, you heard us.  ”About two weeks after Heath Ledger died, he appeared to me in the mirror when I was shaving.  It was really quickly.  He said, ‘I f’d up.’  He gave me the thought of his daughter and then he was gone.”

However, you don’t have to be famous to get use out of Van Praagh’s book.  ”I created ‘The Ghost Whisperer’ and Hollywood got a hold of it and made it a little scary, so I’ve gotten thousands of emails from people from all over the world, who ask if this is the way it really is.  Being the teacher that I am, I’ve got to explain to people exactly what it’s like when you leave the body and you’re a ghost and what it’s like as a ghost being earthbound.”  Believe it, or not.

THE INSIDE TRACK: Tears for Fears co-founder/singer Curt Smith says his first solo CD in ten years, “Halfway, pleased”(cq) reflect the changes parenthood has effected in his life. “When I was younger I was protesting against things, but now my main concern is really protecting these small human beings I’m looking after,” says Smith, who has two young children. “Until you have children, it’s all about ‘I need this. I need that.’ Now, I want it to be this way or that way because of them. It’s not just me beating my head against the norm, but really trying to change the future for what we’re leaving our children.”

Smith wrote all the tunes on the semi-autobiographical album, but says the most personal tune is the title track “Halfway, pleased.” “It’s really about my relationship with my mother and how it’s sort of changed over the years. I view it differently because I’m a father now.”  He adds since becoming a father he’s experienced “that feeling for the first time in your life of knowing, honestly knowing 100 percent, that you would actually die for another human being and that’s quite an amazing and powerful thing.” Smith is releasing his new CD May 20 on his own KOOK Media record label.  “I’m not going to be doing excessive touring because of my children,” he says, adding he and Tears for Fears mate Roland Orzabal are “going to do some touring later in the year in Europe, which is another reason why I don’t want to go out on my own.”  For more info go to www.curtsmithofficial.com.

GIVING BACK: Deion Sanders may be retired from his illustrious athletic career in football and baseball, but he says he still takes his  role as an athletic mentor very seriously.  ”I mentor in football, baseball, basketball – from the NFL, all the way
down to junior high kids,” says the NFL commentator and star of the reality television show, Deion & Pilar: Prime Time Love, with his wife Pilar Biggers.   “If I’m naïve enough to think that God blessed me with athletic ability just to make money and hoard it for myself then I would be a fool.  I was  blessed at this level to be able to reach people and touch them, to evoke change in their lives, and I take that very seriously,” declares Sanders, who has helped the likes of football players Devin Hester and DeAngelo Hall.  ”I don’t want to see people make the same mistakes I made or have their dreams thwarted by some type of foolishness.”

Mischa Barton is still making the rounds promoting “Closing the Ring” overseas — in Tokyo to be exact. In fact, Mischa has been promoting a lot in Tokyo lately. With all the growth this site has experienced in the U.S. lately, maybe I need to contact Mischa about some overseas exposure. Hey, it never hurts to ask!