Backstage Report: Kate Winslet's Got Her Nominations, er, Nomination Straight

Kate Winslet is not confused. Tina Fey is not paranoid. Sean Penn is not a jerk. And no, Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss still doesn't really want to talk about it. (Her upcoming wedding, that is. Shh.)

A rundown of the night's backstage doings—and sayings...

5:54 p.m.: "I don’t have to give a speech back here, too, do I?” asks Winslet, who either never caught her breath after winning two Globes a couple of weeks ago, or just lost it again about 20 minutes ago.

• OK, let's see if I can walk you through this: Here at the SAGs, Winslet won for The Reader as a supporting actress, and lost for Revolutionary Road as a leading actress; at the Oscars, she's nominated in the Best Actress category for The Reader. (Her work in Revolutionary Road was unnominated.) Winslet, for one, is in need of no further explanation. “No, I’m not confused," she assures me. "I’m very clear on that [her Oscar nomination]—I’m very, very happy, too."

• For those wondering, Winslet isn't a Nazi, she only plays one in The Reader. "I couldn’t relate to her at all,” Winslet says of the character. “Did I sympathize with her? No.”

• Winslet is looking purpler than Prince. Good thing then that when a reporter asks her what she likes about her dress, she replies: "The color."

• In case you missed it on the telecast, Judah Friedlander's baseball cap reads: “Most Improved.” I'm pretty sure it's meant as an ironic statement.

• The 30 Rockers win, on average, an award every 48 hours. "It feels like everybody is starting to turn on us," Tina Fey says. I'm pretty sure it's meant as a Friedlander baseball-cap statement.
30 Rock, Screen Actors' Guild Awards AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

• In her acceptance speech for the show, Jane Krakowski made a vintage crack about the skinny and skinnier Ally McBeal cast. I ask the brassy actress if she's afraid Calista Flockhart will come after her. "Oh, it was just a joke..." Krakowski laughs.

• I'm glad Krakowski's not worried, because as it's constituted backstage right now, the 30 Rock lineup really isn't all that, um, heavyweight. Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan are MIA.

• Morgan, like Baldwin, is on the premises. And he's liking his Actor. "It's the first thing I've ever won in my life," Morgan says at the award table. "I think I won musical chairs one time in kindergarten."

• Back on the interview stage, Fey jokes about her daughter catching 30 Rock reruns on the Internet. So, I ask, does Fey actually watch her TV show on TV? "When I’m home, I absolutely watch it on TV," she says."If not, I TiVo it." You know, just like everybody else.

• "I download it illegally from England in HD," says Friedlander, getting in the last word on the brave, new, scary network-TV business model.
Mad Men Cast AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

6:22 p.m.: Hey, there are women in Mad Men, aren’t there? “They’re not allowed onstage,” says Jon Hamm, channeling the male chauvinism of his period show. “They’re making sandwiches,” pipes up Vincent Kartheiser, doing the same.

• For the record, the Mad Men women are still doing photo ops. They’ll join the enlightened guys onstage shortly.

• A reporter asks “the little one” for his name. Hamm steps forward: “My name’s Jon.”

• For the record, “the little one” is Aaron Hart, the 7-year-old who plays Don Draper’s son, Robert. And, for the record, no, Hart doesn’t know what he’s going to do with his Actor. Did I mention he’s 7?

• A reporter poses a serious question about the ongoing SAG contract talks. Hamm, who just can't help himself tonight, looks down to the little one: “Aaron, do you want to take that?”

• I ask Hamm a more serious question about his hair. It’s just not very Don Draper-like tonight (nor was it at the Globes), and I want to know if he’s making a statement, although I fear it may have sounded to Hamm as if I wanted to know if it was his hair. “It’s hair,” he says, almost as perplexed as I am. “I don’t know. It’s hair.”

• In my defense, there is a difference between free-flowing Jon Hamm hair and slicked-down Don Draper hair. Explains Hamm: “Once it [Don Draper hair] gets put in place, it literally does not move.”

• What about the pending nuptials of Elisabeth Moss and Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen? Are Moss’ castmates getting invites? “This is awkward. This is really awkward,” she says, yes, awkwardly. “I’m trying to keep it very private. But I will have everyone I love there.”
Sean Penn Kevin Winter/Getty Images

• John Adams’ Laura Linney has to offer a little wave to get the attention of reporters. In a tug-of-war between the umpteenth Linney press conference of award season, and Gary Oldman’s teary acceptance speech for Heath Ledger (now playing on the TV), Oldman and Ledger win.

7:14 p.m: Quick quiz: Who’s the more press-friendly star? Down-to-earth Meryl Streep, humble Hugh Laurie, perky Sally Field or Dark Lord Sean Penn? Tonight the answer is, shockingly enough, Penn, who, unlike the other three, does not pass on the press conference.

• Old pal Penn stands, hands in pockets, sans statue, holding court on whether he had reservations about playing Milk’s Harvey Milk. “No,” says Penn. That's it. He says, "No." Look, I never said it was a very interesting—or long—story.

• On the day Slumdog Milliionaire received 10 Oscar nominations, its cast and director Danny Boyle were, in true fable fashion, in Mumbai for the film’s premiere there. “Danny had tears in his eyes,” Anil Kapoor, who plays the harsh taskmaster of a game-show host, tells us. “It [was] unreal. We just couldn’t believe it.”

• Slumdog star Dev Patel, all of 18, still can’t believe it. “Walking the red carpet, I’m seeing people who won Oscars before I ever contemplated being an actor,” he says. “My first love was Kate Winslet. And she knew who I was!”
Slumdog Millionaire, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor Kevin Winter/Getty Images

• No, Winslet hasn't won an Oscar (yet), but in case Patel thinks she has, I don't think I should break it to him right now.

• Kapoor is having a very good night. “I must thank him,” he says, pointing to costar Irrfan Khan, who plays the police interrogator. “He introduced me to Angelina Jolie.” (Khan worked with Jolie in A Mighty Heart.)

• Sure, respect from your acting peers is nice, but respect from Regis Philbin? Now we're talking. “He just praised me,” Kapoor says when I ask him if he’d had a confab with the American Who Wants to Be a Millionaire man. “Coming from him, that’s huge.”

• As it turns out, Philbin has his own Slumdog dream. “I wish I could be like [you]—slightly nasty to my contestants,” Kapoor says Philbin told him.