Director Antoine Fuqua lives dangerously. Not only did he shoot "Brooklyn's Finest" on the mean streets of Brownsville, Fuqua insisted on casting Wesley Snipes as a just-out-of-prison drug lord even though Snipes himself faced prison time for tax evasion.

"Our producers were worried that we couldn't even get insurance for the movie with Wesley," Fuqua tells us. "Wesley was very calm on the set, but you could tell he was concerned. On the first day of shooting, I went to his trailer and we prayed together." Later that day, Fuqua says, "Wesley ran over and gave me the biggest hug. He'd just found out he didn't have to go to jail."

Meanwhile, Snipes' co-star Ethan Hawke still cherishes the advice he got from a bona fide Brownsville gangbanger. "We'd just a scene where I get shot," Hawke recalls. "I'm covered in fake blood. This guy with major league gold teeth asks, 'Have you ever really been shot?' I said, 'No, I haven't.' He said, 'I can tell.'" The bullet-scarred gangsta told Hawke that he'd been shot five times. "He walked me through the different phases you go through," says Hawke.

"He said, 'First, you feel the heat but it doesn't bother you that much  Then you're angry. Then the pain comes. Then you're scared. And then you're just out of it.' I'm trying to remember all this – making mental notes. Then we turned the camera on him for the scene where I shoot him while he's playing a video game: Action. Bang, Bang. But he's still playing the game. We're whispering, 'Psst! You've been shot!' He says, 'Oh, yeah!' and he finally falls over. I said, 'Man, you're making fun of me!  You suck!'"

Has Chris Albrecht gone off again? The former HBO chief pleaded no contest to battery in 2007 after Vegas cops busted him for choking girlfriend Karla Jensen. Albrecht, new CEO of the Starz network, has since undergone anger-management counseling. But witnesses say he majorly lost his temper on Thursday night outside the Beverly Hills outpost of Soho House.

"He and a friend were trying to get into the Elton John party, but the people at the door said they weren't on the list," reports one spy. "Chris got very angry - to the point where security had to intervene." A Starz spokesman denies Albrecht lost it, insisting he simply "decided not to go in. There was no unpleasantness." P.S. The 57-year-old Albrecht, now split with Jensen, has been seeing 24-year-old blond equestrian Montana Coady.

"CSI" actor Gerald McCullouch heroically helped capture a knife-wielding mugger on the subway last year. But the man who plays investigator Bobby Dawson found himself on the wrong side of the law the other night. McCullouch had been celebrating his stage turn in "Daddy" with "Fight for Survival" buddy Keith Collins at Amnesia. "I'd had a little to drink," McCullouch tells us.

"So, as I was coming down the West Side Highway, I asked my cab driver to pull over so I could relieve myself. Suddenly I was surrounded by three cop cars. I said, ‘Officer, at least let me finish!' " McCullouch says, laughing. "I've gone from hero to criminal. But I actually learned something from the hour-long quality-of-life counseling the judge sentenced me to. Education is better than a fine."