BEN, J.LO SMOLDER UP THE SET

By RICHARD JOHNSON with Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson

FOR all you cynics who think the Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez romance is a publicity stunt, Kevin Smith has something to say.

Smith, the writer and director of the duo’s latest picture, “Jersey Girl,” writes in his weekly diary on moviepoopshoot.com: “If you’re ever shooting a movie about two people falling in love, I can’t urge you strongly enough to cast a pair of people who are actually falling in love.

“The chemistry between Ben and Jen is so palpable, you could almost bottle it and sell it as an aphrodisiac. Take after take, we watched Ben and Jen [who we couldn’t have cast as love-at-first-sighters at a better time in their lives] flirt through a rapid-fire-dialogue dance of movie meet-cute.

“But this wasn’t just art imitating life,” Smith reports. “Somehow in the midst of all that smolder . . . the performances they gave were nothing short of spellbinding.”

One person definitely not enamored of Affleck is Lopez’s ex-father-in-law, Larry Judd. In a tell-all interview with the National Enquirer, Judd claims Lopez started cheating on her husband Cris Judd with Affleck after just five months of marriage. He says she also cheated on Sean “Puffy” Combs and lied to the press and friends when she left Cris to make herself look good.

“There was talk that Jennifer rebounded to Cris after Puffy, but I don’t believe that,” Larry said. “They had been dating long before [Combs’ club-shooting] trial began.”

According to Larry, Lopez pressed the marriage issue and all was fine until she started filming “Gigli” with Affleck: “She was leaving the house at 5 a.m. and she wouldn’t return until after 10 p.m. . . . Jennifer was spending more time with Ben, and Ben made [Cris] feel unwelcome . . .

“Then in May, she told Cris that their marriage was over and she would be seeking a divorce . . . Jennifer did not conduct herself as a married woman, and Ben did not respect the fact that she was my son’s wife.

“In May, she told Oprah Winfrey how happy she was being married to Cris. It was all a lie to protect her public image!”

As for those reports that Cris got up to $15 million in the divorce settlement, Larry claims his son took nothing: “Despite the fact his wife is one of the richest women in Hollywood, Cris chose not to seek his half of the community property split. As far as I know, my son walked away from his marriage with only his clothes, his new dog and his automobile.”

Cris has been singing a different tune, and in August told PAGE SIX spies that he took home close to $10 million and has just bought a $2 million house in the Hollywood Hills.

Cute street scene Tuesday: Ben Affleck giving movie daughter Raquel Castro a ride on his shoulders, over and over again, on Walnut Street outside the Forrest Theatre. The theater was “renamed” the Zsigmond (why, just like cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond) and the prop marquee read Sweeney Todd. (The marquee not facing the cameras read The Vagina Monologues, premiering Oct. 8.)

One more Jersey Girl baby story: John and Nancy Agnew’s sons, Jaden and Jagger, were born Aug. 14. A week later, the Agnews got a call at their Northeast Philadelphia home from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, saying that producers were shopping for newborns. Preferably two of a kind to play the title character as a baby. Two days later, the Agnews were in a trailer on the set. A knock. It was Affleck and movie wife Jennifer Lopez, who hung out for more than a half-hour. When John Agnew learned that the film baby would be a girl, “I was like, ‘This is not going to work.’ Then they put the [pink] outfits on them, and I said, ‘It’ll work.’ ”

BEN SPEAKS TO CHIO – After weeks of dogging Ben Affleck’s footsteps, court jester Diego finally got Affleck to talk live on Q-102’s “Chio in the Morning” show.

Chio was unprepared with questions because he didn’t think Diego could pull it off, what with tight security around the the star as he filmed “Jersey Girl” at the Forrest Theatre. But Diego stuck a cell phone in Ben’s hand and – voila!

Chio also was unprepared when Affleck claimed to listen to the show in the morning and promised to drop by the station in person. (Morning fem Christie nearly fainted when she heard this.)

(If he does visit, maybe Chio can ask Ben if he really dropped 100Gs at the blackjack table in Atlantic City’s Trump Marina, as the buzz is saying – but Ben’s press spokesman is not.)

CELEB SPOTTING – Actress Liv Tyler – casual in sneaks, jeans and sweater – led a party of six (including her “Jersey Girl” director Kevin Smith) to dinner at the Palm (Broad & Walnut) and picked up the $500 tab. The Lady had lobster bisque and lamb chops, The Director settled for grilled chicken breast. About $200 went for the Italian red wine she favors.

“I had the good fortune of being able to hang out for a week on the set of Kevin Smith´s film Dogma. I got to talk to some of the stars in the flick and soon came to realize that these people are not special. That´s right folks, famous people actually need food and water to survive. They use the bathroom. They have the same fears as you and I.”

Steven Spielberg wasn’t very cooperative when director Kevin Smith (”Chasing Amy”) asked Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment if he could use a clip from “Jaws” in a new film, “Jersey Girl.” “The word came back from Amblin that Spielberg didn’t want to license scenes featuring the shark, based on the primitive special effects in the flick (i.e., the shark looks fake),” Smith writes in a diary he’s keeping about making “Jersey Girl.” “When we chose another scene … the word came back that Spielberg didn’t want to license the use of any scenes in ‘Jaws’ that reminded people how scary the movie was.”

Hollywood comes to Berlin

Surely there have been bigger events in the history of Berlin.

It’s just that no one can remember when.

For hundreds who lined the White Horse Pike at Broad Street just about all day Monday, this was it. A once-in-a- lifetime moment fueled by megawatt Hollywood star power.

“This town lives for stuff like this,” said Ronnie Kapischke, 47, manager of a Wawa whose parking lot was the front line of a celebrity safari for Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez and Liv Tyler, stars of Jersey Girl. The film, by Central Jersey native Kevin Smith, is being shot in South Jersey and Philadelphia.

Kapischke said crowds started gathering around 5 a.m. By 11, they’d bought her last roll of film.

The Berlin Diner – a metal-plated, art deco, neon- lighted throwback across Broad Street – was the location for a scene being filmed Monday.

“Ben … J. Lo … Liv,” voices barked out from the crowd, which grew to about 400 by midday, as the onlookers’ idols breezed on and off the set.

Affleck, an Oscar winner and certified matinee idol, worked the fans into a frenzy just before 10 a.m., strolling across Broad Street to meet and greet.

Women cooed as the chiseled, 6-foot-3 actor turned up the charm. He posed, offered kisses, signed autographs and smiled for just about everyone and everything in front of him as the crowd pressed in.

Affleck even grabbed several cell phones to chat with unbelieving friends who would have killed to be there.

“He talked to my girlfriend,” sighed Tina Caro, 40, of Berlin, still breathless a few hours later.

Caro, a school bus driver, said her friend Marcy Czechowski was resting at home in Cherry Hill after recent surgery.

“He told her to have a good recovery,” Caro said. “He called her `sweetie.’”

No doubt about it, this was a big deal for Berlin, whose population is slightly above 6,000.

“It’s such a treat to have a movie set in a town people used to make fun of,” said Lori Singley, 49. “When we were growing up, people used to call us farmers. This is a nice little Jersey town.”

Jersey Girl is actually set in the Monmouth County borough of Highlands. It’s about Affleck, a New York City PR man forced to move back to his hometown with his wife, played by Lopez, and their daughter, the title character. Scenes also have been shot in Paulsboro.

But that’s all Hollywood stuff. As far as the locals here were concerned, Jersey Girl reflects them and their community.

“It’s great for Berlin,” said Police Chief Lawrence Winters, who deployed 13 of his 16 officers to the scene.

The only thing that rivaled the excitement, Winters said, occurred several years ago when the old Berlin Hotel was moved down the pike to a new location.

Kapischke remembered the hotel spectacle, but ranked Monday’s movie shoot higher.

“The hotel was old and ugly,” she said. “Ben is not old or ugly.”

The crowds, packed on both sides of the pike behind yellow police tape and under an overcast sky, spied every move. Technicians, extras, stand-ins and just about everyone near the action were fair game for adulation. Lopez stoked the fans by sweeping into the diner just before 11 a.m. and leaving shortly afterward, wrapped in Affleck’s arm.

Tyler, daughter of Aerosmith singer Steve Tyler, also drew whoops and hollers as she was whisked in and out of the restaurant.

But the crowd, overwhelmingly female and swelled by kids off from school for Yom Kippur, left no doubt about its favorite.

“We’ve been out here since 7 a.m.,” said borough resident Stephanie Amato, 15, as pal Jessica Malespin, 13, stood next to her. “We were across the street and we thought they weren’t going to let us come over here to get an autograph from Ben Affleck, but we squeezed through the crowd.”

Their reward: autographed T-shirts they swore would never be washed again.

HUNDREDS OF starry-eyed movie fans crowded around the Berlin Diner, in Berlin, Camden County, yesterday, to catch a glimpse of actors Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez and Liv Tyler who were filming the movie, “Jersey Girl.”

The crowd erupted when Lopez stepped out of a SUV and waved to fans.

Tyler and Affleck delighted the crowd when they emerged from filming in the diner.

“In Sunday’s item about Ben Affleck’s going goo-goo over babies on the set of ‘Jersey Girl’, I listed his year of birth as 1962. It’s 1972. Also, the names of baby Shane Kubiak’s mother and aunt were transposed; his mother is Fran Savastano, and his aunt is Theresa Marsden.”

Ben Affleck, Oscar-winning co-writer of Good Will Hunting, and Sean Bailey, his executive-producing partner on the breakout hit Project Greenlight, take another bold step in the re-invention of modern entertainment with the provocative and offbeat mystery series Push, Nevada.

Mild-mannered IRS agent Jim Prufrock (Derek Cecil) travels to a remote desert town in search of missing money and stumbles on a place where mystery, danger and peculiar characters lurk around every off-kilter corner. Everyone has a secret in Push, Nevada, but no one is talking, unless they’re telling Jim to get out of town — fast. Every word, every sign, every gesture could hold a clue to solving the riddle of this tiny Nevada town. Solving the clue to the missing fortune could win you $1 million.

The mystery begins when a fax from the Versailles Casino in Push is sent by accident (perhaps) to Jim, alerting him to a sizable accounting error — and an embezzlement scheme involving a fortune in cash. Casino honcho Silas Bodnick refuses to talk about the missing money, so Jim’s investigation leads him to Push, where nothing is as it seems.

Push is a town where neighborhood couples indulge in synchronized romance each night at 9:15; where the only casino, the Versailles, pays out the biggest jackpots in the state; and where the lonely look for companionship at “Sloman’s,” a slow-dance bar. It’s there that Jim meets Mary (Scarlett Chorvat), a beautiful and enigmatic woman who tells him that the mystery of Push is, “like all the best secrets, not quick in the telling,” and warns him to go home before he gets hurt. A determined man, Jim plans to find out what mystery lies behind Push, no matter what the risk. All along the way, a shadowy team of high-tech operatives monitors his every encounter with the town’s denizens.

The pilot episode, co-written and Executive Produced by Matt Damon will air a sneak preview on ABC Television, Tuesday, September 17th at 9/8pm central. The series premiere is on Thursday, September 19th at 8/7c. More information can be obtained at the official Push, Nevada website: http://abc.abcnews.go.com/primetime/push/index.html

JERSEY GIRL is, hands-down, the best movie we’ve ever made.

Granted, we’re only in week two, but I feel comfortable going on the record with that confession. Now for some of you, calling this flick our best probably isn’t saying much (as there are cats who feel we’ve never done anything cinematically worthwhile). For others, you’ll never agree (the hardcore MALLRATS won’t find much to love about this flick). But for me, as my jaw drops watching the performances spark to life while we shoot, as I marvel at the dailies every night, and smile widely when Scott and I cut the scenes together over the weekends, that’s the impression I’m getting. This flick certainly isn’t the funniest film we’ve ever made (far from it), but it’s already the most visually rich affair, with the most thoroughly realized characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching any of my casts commit to celluloid. As we come to the close of week two of our scheduled 11 weeks of shooting, for the first time in my career, I feel like a full-fledged filmmaker, as opposed to just a writer who directs his own stuff.

Rehearsals went incredibly well. We were scheduled for two full weeks, but by the end of day one, it was clear that we could’ve started shooting the next day. In the midst of rehearsals, we took time out to head into Philly’s famous Sigma Sound (where Bowie laid down tracks, many moons ago) to record a song for the big musical number in the flick.

Yes — I said big musical number. Where’s GLAAD now, as I prepare to unabashedly unfurl and let fly my drama-fag flag by showcasing my adoration of show tunes?

…

If you’re ever shooting a movie about two people falling in love, I can’t urge you strongly enough to cast a pair of people who are actually falling in love. The chemistry between Ben and Jen is so palpable, you could almost bottle it and sell it as an aphrodisiac. Take after take, we watched Ben and Jen (who we couldn’t have cast as love-at-first-sighters at a better time in their lives) flirt through a rapid-fire-dialogue dance of movie meet-cute. But this wasn’t just art imitating life; somehow in the midst of all that smolder, they managed to provide us with a pair of performances that reminded this little black duck why he’s always worshipped at the Altar of Affleck, and is now currently constructing a Lopez Basilica as we speak. Honestly, the performances they gave were nothing short of spellbinding.