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    Seen and heard at Sundance

    Associated Press journalists open their notebooks at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah:

    MARIEL'S SALAD DAYS

    Mariel Hemingway says she got kicked out of Overeaters Anonymous because she was hooked on salad.

    Hemingway came to Sundance with the documentary "Running from Crazy," which recounts her family history of mental illness and suicide, including the deaths of sister Margaux and grandfather Ernest Hemingway.

    In her own periods of depression, Hemingway says she found herself eating too much — but not the typical high-calorie foods most overeaters chow down.

    When she went to an overeaters meeting, "they went through this litany of things they ate," Hemingway says. "Chinese food and this and that, and like, for days. Then they went and got doughnuts. And I was like, 'Hi, I'm Mariel Hemingway. I'm an overeater. I know you're going to think this is crazy, but I eat bowls and bowls of lettuce.' And they were like, 'You need to leave.'"

    Hemingway says she's over her own depression now but that her salad benders were among the signs of her own emotional problems.

    "People don't realize that obsessive behavior is just obsessive behavior, even if it's green," she says.

    — David Germain

    _____

    BFFS FOR REAL

    Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen play best friends in "Very Good Girls," which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival, and the two young actresses are close friends in real life.

    "We know each other from being Valley kids in L.A.," Olsen said, adding that she and Fanning have many friends in common.

    "All of our best friends are mutual best friends," said Fanning. "We have known each other, and obviously got closer making this movie, as you do. So I think a lot of the scenes of us together are half Lilly and Gerry and half Dakota and Lizzie. I think that just adds another layer to the movie, that it's real friends playing real friends."

    — Sandy Cohen, www.twitter.com/APSandy.

    _____

    FINALS OR SUNDANCE?

    Actress Elizabeth Olsen missed the Sundance Film Festival premiere of "Very Good Girls" because she was busy taking her college final exams.

    "I'm finishing college Friday," the 23-year-old actress said Wednesday. She studied theater at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

    "It took me six years to finish," she said. "It hasn't been simple (juggling work and school)... You gotta follow all the rules really well, and so it's been really hard. But I'm so appreciative of having a good education."

    — Sandy Cohen, www.twitter.com/APSandy.

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