Sideshow: Matt Damon says he'll take freedom

What is fame, says Oscar-winner

Matt Damon

, other than a penal colony? Damon says his high-profile friends don't enjoy any real freedom.

"I have friends who are like prisoners. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, for instance," Damon, 40, told German television Tele 5 over the weekend.

"They can't just go someplace. If they go for a walk, it turns into an international incident."

Damon, a mensch, says he's lucky to have a low-key life with wife Luciana Barroso and their three girls. "Ever since I found my wife and we had children, my whole life revolves around that. It gave my life a dramatic change in direction," he says.

An

Anonymous Source

contradicts intelligence from

Another Anonymous Source

who claimed teenager

Demi Lovato

, 18, and

Ryan Phillippe

, 36, are lovebirds. "This is not true. He's totally single," the source tells People.

Lamar Odom

and wife

Khloé Kardashian

express sorrow at the death of a 15-year-old boy whose bicycle was hit by Lamar's limo in Jamaica, Queens. Lamar, in New York to attend a cousin's wedding, was in the back passenger's seat.

"Thank you for your support and prayers! My thoughts and prayers are with the young boys family," Odom, 31, tweets. Adds Khloé, 27, "My heart/soul goes out 2every1 in pain from any suffering. Pray 4 all of the angels surrounding us constantly. May our spirits stay strong."

On Monday,

James Van Der Beek

was spotted eating a bibb salad with three women at Rouge on Rittenhouse Square. JVDB is in town to shoot

Backwards

, an inspiring dramedy about the struggles of would-be Olympic rower

Abi Brooks

. Helmed by

Ben Hickernell

(

Lebanon, PA

) the pic costars

Sarah Megan Thomas

,

Margaret Colin

, and

Glenn Morshower

.

Emma Watson

, who has grown up before an audience of katrillions, plans to re-enroll at Brown University, which she left to concentrate on her magic-arts skills.

The plan, the 21-year-old Harry Potter star told the Virginian-Pilot, is to attend Oxford in the fall, but under the auspices of Brown, and then finish up at the Providence, R.I., campus in spring.

The Potter franchise has grossed $2.177 billion, and is on track to top Star Wars' $2.218 billion to become the top-grossing franchise in history.

- Steven Rea

Fidgety-to-the-max

Transformers

star

Shia LaBeouf

will costar with

Robert Redford

in

The Company You Keep

. Helmed by Redford, it's about a young reporter who exposes a '60s radical wanted by the FBI.

ABC's Bachelor Pad will premiere Aug. 8 with a shocking three-hour opening episode, USA Today says.

The spinoff dating show has rejects from past seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette sharing a big house. Fireworks (if not nuclear war) are expected between Jake Pavelka and Vienna Girardi. "I hate him," she says in a show promo.

Jane Fonda

was to be on QVC Saturday, to hawk her book

Prime Time

.

But she was invited to exit beforehand. Why? On her blog she says it was because "they got a lot of calls . . . criticizing me for my opposition to the Vietnam War and threatening to boycott the show."

Jane swears she loves her country.

Moral: Never pose with antiaircraft guns in an enemy country in the middle of a war!

"It is a little weird that everyone else is going back to school and I have graduated," funnyman

Steve Carell

tells USA Today about the prospect of

not

returning to his old show,

The Office

. "It will be interesting two weeks from now. I'm sure I'll have some pangs."

In a bid to seem like a Serious Thesp, the cute-as-a-button

Vanessa Hudgens

has seriously uglified herself for her new role in

Gimme Shelter

.

"I play this girl, who's like homeless and she doesn't care about her look very much," Hudgens tells Access Hollywood. "I kind of look like a boy throughout the whole movie."

The High School Musical starlet prepared for the part by cutting off her own hair (shock!).

The U.S. State Department has declined a petition from prosecutors in Santa Barbara, Calif., to petition Canada to extradite

Randy Quaid

and his wife

Evi

to face felony vandalism charges for allegedly doing $5,000 worth of damage to a home they once owned. . . .

Saturday Night Live

comic

Maya Rudolph

, 38, and director

Paul Thomas Anderson

welcomed their third child, son

Jack

, on July 3, her rep tells People.