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By Andy Culpepper
Turner Entertainment Report Senior Correspondent

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Fifteen minutes of fame. The late pop culture maven Andy Warhol said each of us would eventually experience -- at the very least -- a quarter hour of notoriety.

And Warhol made his now-legendary prediction long before the advent of USA Today, cable news, the Internet, "The Truman Show" -- or a new movie called "EDtv."

The notion behind this Universal Pictures release might have made the eccentric platinum-coiffed artist chuckle once or twice in between painting portraits of Marilyn Monroe or posters of Campbell's soup cans.

In the movie, cable channel True TV has taken a ratings nosedive. Even something called the Gardening Channel is pulling in more viewers. True TV needs a fix -- and fast.

What to do?

How about taking an ordinary person and making his or her life the focus of True TV's broadcast day -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

Matthew McConaughey plays a guy whose life is turned into a full-time television show

The person in question turns out to be an unassuming video store clerk named Ed, played in the film by actor Matthew McConaughey. Ron Howard directs this picture from a script by the comedy writing team of Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel, the guys who collaborated with Howard on the 1989 box office hit, "Parenthood."

"Well, it was a comedy I could connect with on a personal level, that's for sure," says the still boyish-looking Howard. The 40-something filmmaker grew up in the public eye, first playing Opie Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show" before starring as a Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days."

"It also is kind of edgier, sharper than the comedies I've done before, and I'm really happy with the way that aspect of the movie worked out."

The film is rated PG-13, but much of the content is decidedly adult in nature, and the humor is often aimed squarely at the over-40 crowd.

"Yeah, we make fun of everything from TV watchers to the people who make the TV shows to folks who have hair plugs," Howard says with a laugh. "You know, nobody's safe. But what I really hope to do with the movie -- I hoped it would be funny, but that it would also ring true. That you could kind of relate to it. I always look for that."

Relate to it? In a year when the tube has spilled over with images of Monica, Linda, Paula and various lesser luminaries -- how hard a sell could "EDtv" be? Then, again, is there anyone left out there to shock, titillate or horrify?

"It's a fascinating time, it really is," Howard says.

"EDtv" co-star Jenna Elfman

One of the characters in his film delivers a line to the effect that fame is the new American dream.

Could be. But the phenomenon of fame for fame's sake is hardly new.

Baby boomers will likely recall a PBS documentary series from the early seventies called "An American Family" which documented the travails of a real-life California family by the name of Loud. GenXers can point to MTV's "Real World" as a contemporary example in the same sort of genre.

Ed's experience in the movie is different -- if for no other reason than the form in which it unfolds. Ed's broadcast day is un-edited and live -- all Ed, all the time.

The cast of characters includes Ed's brother, Ray, who's played by Woody Harrelson. Ray's girlfriend Shari -- played by Jenna Elfman -- eventually dumps Ray for Ed. But Ed loses Shari and has a fling with a media-hungry starlet played by Elizabeth Hurley. All of this live-on-True TV action pleases the network programming executive -- played by Ellen DeGeneres -- to no end.

If moviegoers sense more than a modicum of irony at work here, they're not alone. Even Howard acknowledges the stranger-than-fiction aspect of some of the casting, but the director insists it wasn't intentional, albeit somewhat fortuitous.

"Creatively, they just sort of elevated the comedy in the film," he says of his players. "And the truthfulness of it."

Elizabeth Hurley sees real-life parallels with the film

A few of his stars could have written the script for this cautionary tale-cum-comedy.

Who can forget the deer-in-the-headlights look on Elizabeth Hurley's face at the premiere of Hugh Grant's movie "Nine Months" -- just days after the revelation he'd been caught by Los Angeles police in his car with a hooker named Divine Brown?

Hurley admits she found "EDtv" amusing when she initially saw the finished product. Then came the other realization.

"I also found it really quite disturbing, because I just kept thinking..." Her voice pauses for the briefest of moments as she narrows her eyes before continuing. "...but that's been me."

"In some cases, that still is me," she says. "And it's kind of quite hideous to see it sort of played out for you in a way."

Harrelson's media battles include a lawsuit filed by two photographers who alleged assault after they tried to take a picture of Harrelson's young daughter.

DeGeneres underwent a year of media turmoil when both she and her sitcom character came out of their respective closets. In the wake of that move, DeGeneres and her life partner, actress Anne Heche, found themselves facing flashbulbs and microphones at every turn.

"It just kind of got out of control," the comic actress says ruefully. "I mean, it did feel like 'EDtv' for me, and I participated in it, so...."

As for "EDtv" lead actors McConaughey and Elfman? They're still somewhat unscathed by the double-edged sword of sudden fame.

The Texas-born actor recalls his first taste of overnight celebrity. It was the weekend John Grisham's "A Time to Kill" hit theaters. One day McConaughey was walking unnoticed down the street in Santa Monica, California. The next day, he was a movie star.

"Pretty surreal is a good word for it. I mean it was exciting, um ... cool in a lot of ways, unnerving in other ways," he recalls with a bemused look.

"You get a little self-conscious...kind of like, check your fly, check your nose -- things like that. Those things like, that stuff you never thought about doing before because nobody was looking."

Sitcom star Elfman also found herself the object of so-called overnight stardom -- in her case, on television in "Dharma & Greg." Today, she tries to maintain a realistic attitude toward her relatively new dealings with fame -- which means taking the good with the not-so-good.

"Some people are like, I should be able to have my privacy in this industry and this and that -- but it's like, 'Sorry, you sort of wrote that off when you signed up to be in a movie or TV.'"

Hurley agrees -- to a point -- but she thinks there's still something to be learned from the movie for anyone who's ever contemplated fame and its consequences.

"If there is a message at all, it's probably that we have to recognize in ourselves how we feel morally about certain things and make sure we follow that up with our actions," says the actress and celebrity spokesperson for Estee Lauder cosmetics.

"It's fun and giggly to go, ooh," she says, cocking her eyes in mock surprise, "'I wonder what kind of underwear Tom cruise wears?' But you know what? We actually don't need to know the answer to that. The speculation is, I think, fun enough."

She may be right. So, is the film an indictment of fame? Not really, says Ed's alter ego, McConaughey.

"Naw, I just think it's a realistic kind of mirror of it. I think we can all kind of laugh at ourselves."

Andy Warhol might even agree. At least for 15 minutes.