Researching the Role

“The Hard Way” opens on March 8 from Universal Pictures--and it’s loaded with Hollywood references.

Some preview samples:

The storyline has Michael J. Fox playing hot screen actor Nick Lang--$1.2 billion “in combined ticket sales” and a People’s Choice award--who’s anxious to get the gritty role of a tough cop. Tired of sequels--such as his upcoming “Smokin’ Gun II”--Lang decides to hang with a real-life, hard-as-nails NYC detective, played by James Woods.

Lang drives the cop batty as he takes showbiz to the mean streets--like phoning his agent (Penny Marshall) from the ghetto on a cellular phone, or asking a hot-dog vendor for Grey Poupon.

Look for Fox to pass newsstands with his image emblazoned across Rolling Stone, Premiere--”Still Smokin’, Still Jokin’, But America’s Favorite Good Guy Wants to Get Serious”--and the fictitious scandal sheet Rag Le Monde.

Names dropped include Steven Spielberg, Arsenio Hall and Phil Donahue, and Fox plays characters modeled after Indiana Jones and--by the looks of that ponytail--Steven Seagal.

Woods’ character, in turn, gets in plenty of digs about what he perceives Hollyweird to be about, including “Scientology gurus” and “gerbil racing.”