PASADENA, Calif. — At 26, actor Joe Mazzello is already a 20-year veteran. But he's not like most child actors who grow up on crafts services, private tutors and limos at their service. "I think all of it has to do with parenting and keeping your kid grounded, keeping them in the real world and don't let them get caught up in it," the slender Mazzello says, seated on the sunny balcony of a hotel here.

PASADENA, Calif. — You can't miss him. British comic Stephen Merchant, who co-wrote the original "The Office" and "Extras" with Ricky Gervais, is 6-foot-7 inches tall. He reached those stratospheric proportions in his early teens, and has felt like an outcast ever since.

BURBANK, Calif. — Everybody may love Raymond except for Ray Romano himself. The star of the long-running hit sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" has managed to stay the same guy he was when he was repairing futon mattresses for his best friend and living in Queens.

HOLLYWOOD — You'd never know by watching the cast and crew of USA's whodunit, Monk, that its days are sadly numbered. After eight seasons the obsessive-compulsive detective, his ministering assistant and pals at the precinct are heading off into the sunset after Dec. 4.

BURBANK, Calif. — Actor Christian Slater's long and successful career makes it seem like he never missed out on anything. But there is one thing that passed him by, he says: life. When he was 27 he'd already worked 18 years. "My life about that time was working and stressing about working. That was pretty much what it was based on. I really didn't know there were other things to do. I had no concept or clue," says Slater in the commissary on the Warner Bros. lot.