Tuning In

Rose-colored portrait

ESPN has named the actor who will be portraying scandal-plagued Pete Rose … and he has a few skeletons in his closet as well.

Tom Sizemore, who was sentenced to six months in jail last year for beating then-girlfriend Heidi Fleiss, will portray Mr. Rose in ESPN’s TV movie “Hustle,” Reuters News Agency reports.

The project, to be directed by Peter Bogdanovich, chronicles Mr. Rose’s gambling-related downfall in the 1980s as documented in Major League Baseball’s Dowd Report. Filming is scheduled to begin May 14 in Toronto for a Sept. 25 premiere.

“Tom Sizemore’s ability to play gritty, conflicted characters is his hallmark,” Mark Shapiro, ESPN’s executive vice president of programing and production told Reuters.

Mr. Sizemore, an admitted crystal methamphetamine addict, was convicted in August of domestic violence and making criminal threats against Miss Fleiss, also known as the “Hollywood Madam,” during their tempestuous one-year relationship.

His feature-film credits include turns in “Saving Private Ryan,” “Pearl Harbor” and “Black Hawk Down.”

BET raps with Kerry

John F. Kerry will be interviewed on Black Entertainment Television in part one of the network’s two-part quizzing of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

The one-on-one interview with “BET Nightly News” anchor Jacque Reid airs tonight and tomorrow evening at 11.

She buzzes and scores

Eleven-year-old Naomi Senbet wasn’t nervous as she stood before Alex Trebek and a local crowd gathered in DAR Constitution Hall to shoot this week’s kid-friendly “Jeopardy.”

Nor did the notion that millions of people would soon be watching her cause any butterflies to flutter.

For Naomi, the hardest part was working the buzzer that let the world know she knew exactly what question Mr. Trebek wanted to hear.

“You have to be really quick. The other people are smart,” Naomi says.

Viewers can see just how well she applied her trigger finger — and her budding intellect — starting tonight on the long-running game show. Naomi’s “Jeopardy” episodes begin airing at 7:30 p.m. on WJLA TV Channel 7.

Naomi, the sole District representative, is a straight-A student who enjoys ballet, theater and playing the cello, according to her family. During her “Jeopardy” experience, the preteen says, she felt “the cameras were not even there.”

“Once you get on the game, you’re really focused,” she says, adding that playing the game in the confines of Constitution Hall proved far different from watching it from the comfort of her couch.

“It made the game more exciting. And after every game, Alex Trebek would talk to the crowd,” she says.

Mr. Trebek, the show’s avuncular quizmaster, is “really serious about the questions. He studies them for quite a while,” says Naomi, a sixth-grader at Lafayette Elementary School in Northwest who began watching “Jeopardy” when she was just 4 years old, according to her parents.

“I had no idea what they were talking about,” Naomi says.

Still, she watched anyway, and eventually some of the questions became clear. That definitely was the case during the frequent youth-week shows.

Should other District youngsters find themselves on the “Jeopardy” stage in the future — competing and also listening to its inimitable “thinking” music — Naomi suggests they do their homework beforehand.

Of course, she adds, that means gearing up by playing plenty of PlayStation video games — to prime their buzzer fingers.

’Curb’ appeal

HBO subscribers who missed some or all of this season’s deliciously dark “Curb Your Enthusiasm” will get a second chance this month to catch up.

Throughout May, the network will air two “Curb” episodes back to back beginning at 8 p.m. each Monday. The first two-pack bows tonight.

“Enthusiasm,” from the wickedly sharp mind of Larry David (“Seinfeld”) is the quasi-improv hit starring Mr. David, Jeff Garlin and Cheryl Hines.

This season’s main story line centered on Larry playing Max Bialystock in “The Producers” on Broadway.

Compiled by Christian Toto from staff and wire reports.