CSI: Miami’s Eva LaRue just moved to a new house and promptly switched all the light bulbs to compact fluorescents. “They last up to seven years so you’re not climbing ladders trying to change them all the time,” she points out, noting that if everyone did the same, “it would be the equivalent of taking 2 million cars off the road” in energy savings. “We have low-flow toilets, low-flow showerheads,” she adds, and her daughter Kaya, 8, reminds her and her fiancé to recycle if they inadvertently put a plastic bottle in the trash. “She learned it in school. It’s great that they’re doing that. If they learn it at school, they listen more than if they hear it from their parents,” says LaRue, who buys only grass-fed meat and flaxseed-fed poultry for her family. “You are what they eat — it’s a big, long food chain,” she explains. As a mom, she’s especially concerned about the effects of hormone-filled commercial meat on children’s bodies. “Girls are developing earlier and getting their periods earlier, which means a greater risk for breast and uterine cancer.”

 

This season on CSI: Miami, LaRue’s character Natalia faces hearing loss she suffered in an explosion. “I’ll still be dealing with that through the end of the season,” she tells us.

 

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“I’ve been thinking about converting my car to vegetable oil. I’m not sure yet, but I’m learning about it. I don’t know what it entails,” admits Alexis Bledel, (Gilmore Girls), who stars in The Good Guy, a New York City-set movie about the pitfalls of modern love. Her character Beth is bright, ambitious, and romantic, and like many young women, falls for the wrong guy before she finds the right one. The attractions of the role aside, Bledel (pictured right) liked the idea of playing a more adult character than the one she’s best known for, Rory Gilmore. “I look for that in a film but I just try to find work that’s interesting and hopefully entertaining to others,” says Bledel, who was in the ER finale and doesn’t rule out a return to TV, especially in cable. She’ll be seen later this year in Robert Redford’s The Conspirator, about a woman (Robin Wright) involved in the Lincoln assassination plot. Bledel plays the girlfriend of the woman’s lawyer (James McAvoy).

 

In a departure from the nice guys he’s played in projects like Friday Night Lights, Scott Porter has moved to the dark side in his latest roles, playing a terrorist in Syfy’s Caprica and an egomaniac Wall Streeter in The Good Guy. “He’s got to be the man in every situation. He’s got to win,” says Porter of his character, which he researched by spending time hanging out with traders at work and in the clubs. Appearing in 10 of 18 Caprica episodes this season, the diehard Battlestar Galactica fan and self-described “geek” landed his role after approaching the show’s creators at the Saturn Awards, only to discover that they were similarly big fans of Friday Night Lights.

 

Also on screen in Dear John, Porter (pictured left) recently moved to L.A. after shooting that film in Charleston, S.C., The Good Guy in New York, and Friday Night Lights in Austin, Texas, his home for the last four years. “I wanted to move to a neighborhood where I could walk,” he says, which is why he chose the pedestrian-friendly Larchmont neighborhood. “If it’s less than a mile and a half, I have no problem walking,” he says, noting that he uses CFL bulbs, takes his own bags to the store, and is petitioning his apartment building to start recycling. He’s also shopping for a car and considering several hybrids. 

 

The Good Guy opens in limited release Feb. 19.

 

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The Florida Everglades are full of alligators, but there’s an even more fearsome creature threatening its eco-system. As depicted in the PBS documentary Invasion of the Giant Pythons, premiering Feb. 21 on PBS, “Some were intentionally discarded there by pet owners, and others unintentionally set free when the hurricanes hit Florida’s animal warehouses,” explains producer Fred Kaufman. “The Everglades are similar to their native Asian habitat, and the predatory snakes have moved into their new home with a vengeance. A python can grow to more than 25 feet, weigh 250 pounds and can eat an entire alligator. This film is a serious look at the impact one exotic pet is having on our vanishing wilderness.” It’s a serious issue indeed: At a press conference last month, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposed a ban on imported snakes in response to the problem.