Here's what it's like on Oscar morning. Many many hours before the first recognizable person will walk down the red carpet--it's usually Sally Kirkland or Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Borgnine if they're both still alive--the streets around the Kodak Theater are closed off by concrete barricades, metal fences, security personnel, etc. You'd think the pope was on his way later today, but it's only the Gyllenhaals.
They've shut down the mall next to the Kodak. Frantic media people are distressed because this means the Starbucks is closed--but there's another Starbucks a few blocks away, on "Tacky Museum Row," as I like to call it. Past the Guinness Museum, beyond Ripley's, near the Scientology Center, there it is! An open Starbucks, with the line snaking out to the sidewalk.
I fuel up on coffee and return to my hotel, navigating my way past maniacal fans that have been camping out for hours. They'll stay here for hours, waiting for that magic moment when a Philip Seymour Hoffman or a Felicity Huffman emerges from a limousine and waves in their direction.
I just got word that I have to be in place at 1 p.m. PST--four hours before the Oscars--in order to pass through security and get into place for TV duties. That means I'll be wearing a tuxedo for at least the next 14 hours. You don't even wear a tux that long on your wedding day, do you?
*A* Philip Seymour Hoffman? You mean there's more than one? I guess that explains how the same name appears in the cast list for works of genius like "The Big Lebowski" and complete trash like "Patch Adams."
So, are you waiting to see the good PSH or the bad PSH?