Oscar beat: final touches

At Oscar rehearsal, especially at Oscar rehearsal the day before the show, movie stars are a dime a dozen. But a former vice president and unsuccessful presidential candidate--now, that's something else entirely, as Al Gore proved when he stopped by the Kodak Theater on Saturday morning.

Gore, booked as a presenter on the Oscar show amidst swirling rumors that he either will or won't announce his presidential candidacy onstage at the Kodak, caused a real stir among crew members for whom nine hours full of movie stars is just one more day at work.

And when Gore walked onstage to rehearse, he was greeted with a rarity at Oscar rehearsals: an enthusiastic standing ovation from the crew members and guests.

When the applause died down, Gore proved himself a politician to the core. "I've been backstage watching," he told the crowd, many of whom were stand-ins who'd spent the morning accepting phony Oscar statuettes and making mock acceptance speeches. "And you have been making the best acceptance speeches I've ever heard."

Backstage, Gore was attended by a large group of aides, including his wife, Tipper Gore, and other family members. At one point fellow presenter Leonardo DiCaprio chatted with the politician and admired the support system.

"You have quite a team here," said DiCaprio at one point. "I'd like to hire these guys."

Gore laughed. "You have to understand," he said with a grin, "what our family's been through."

The rest of the morning and afternoon was devoted to business as usual--which, the Saturday before the show, means it was Star Day. From 8:30 in the morning (Hugh Jackman) to 5:45 in the afternoon (Anne Hathaway), stars arrived a 15-minute intervals to go over their scripts, read their lines, record voiceovers, collect show and Governors Ball tickets, and attend to everything else that being a presenter entails.

Co-producer Danette Herman, who is working on her 33rd Oscar show, says Star Day "has to work like clockwork." For the crew, it's essential to work as an efficient machine to ferry the stars from producer Laura Ziskin's office to the green room to the stage to the sound booth to all points in between.

Pages are assigned to escort each star, while a crew of stage managers take control of the different steps along the way. At one point, stage manager Rita Cossette brought "The Last King of Scotland" co-star James McEvoy from Ziskin's office to her colleague Dency Nelson's territory in the stage right wings.

"You're just being handed off from person to person today, aren't you?" said Nelson to first-time participant McEvoy.

"Yeah," said the Scottish actor. "I feel like the Olympic torch."

Close to 40 of McEvoy's colleagues got the same treatment on Saturday, from first-timers Abigail Breslin, Eva Green and Daniel Craig to Oscar vets Jack Nicholson, Nicole Kidman and John Travolta.

The number was higher than usual because Ziskin likes to use presenters in pairs rather than singly, though she doesn't always team them up in expected ways. (For instance, the readers who've been speculating on the Envelope's Gold Derby Forums that "Casino Royale" co-stars Craig and Green must be presenting together are mistaken; they are teamed up, but not with each other.)

Other moments from Star Day: