Hey everyone, I’m so excited to be backstage at the Film Independent Spirit Awards again this year. Of course, this year the Awards moved from Saturday afternoon on the beach in Santa Monica to Friday night at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles.
I’m situated in On 3 Productions’ Gift Lounge, where FAGE Total Yogurt and LG Electronics’ new high-performance Kompressor Vacuums are the primary sponsors, all for charity.
And the action’s starting to heat up… so read below for the blow-by-blow.
11:20 PM — My final interview of the night is one of the night’s big winners — Gabourey Sidibe, who won Best Actress here tonight. She let me hold her award and wow, was it ever heavy?! She is so funny she started doing arm curls with it and told me, “Welcome to the gun show!” Too cute. OK that’s a wrap for tonight folks. See you at the Oscars!
11:00 PM — Johnny Weir and Gabourey Sidibe are now bonding. They are feeding each other Altoids. Too cute.
10:30 PM — Jodie Foster just breezed through. She’s so stunning in person. Sherri Shepherd is here now too. She’s so friendly.
10:00 PM — So I just caught up with Johnny Weir who was, as always, hilarious. He sat next to Elton John the whole night and I asked him what they talked about. His reply? — “You know… jewelry, diamonds, boys, girls…” — priceless.
9:05 PM — Ricki Lake told me she just shot a documentary on her flip cam called “Six Weeks Of Poor Judgement” about a guy she met on the Internet. Hilarious! So she grabbed a new Flip cam while in the gift lounge so she could shoot the sequel.
8:30 PM — Just got up with Rosario Dawson, and we talked about two new films coming out this fall. She’s very excited about “The Zookeeper,” which she’s co-starring in with Kevin James. We also spoke about how she’s been test-driving Mercedes’ new diesel hybrid car — she loves it because it rides higher than her current hybrid.
8:00 PM — The show’s started and everyone’s hustling to their seats.
7:40 PM — Maria Bello, Regina King and Jason Lewis are all passing through right now. Jason’s laughing and having fun at the Leigh & Luca Designer Scarves station. Regina is checking out The Body Shop’s station. And Maria is over by the LG Kompressor Vacuums station.
7:30 PM — I’m having a ‘80s freak out moment because Matt Dillon is here now. “Let’s do it for Johnny man… do it for Johnny!”
7:20 PM — Ken Jeong is here! I am so excited to see him! And I am finally meeting his wife for the first time (who looks exactly like the female version of him!). We’re in front of the Crunch Firtness station and he is so funny and keeps mentioning our interview when we named him AccessHollywood.com’s Rising Star.
7:15 PM — I asked Taraji P. Henson what her favorite thing is at the gift lounge and she told me its the AMC Exclusive Signature Pass. She’s psyched because it gets her free movies for a year. Who knew her son was in “Inglorious Basterds”? I didn’t until now!
7:10 PM — I asked Gilles Marini at the FAGE Total Yogurt Bar about how they’re announcing the new “Dancing with the Stars” co-host on Monday. I asked him if they asked him, and he told me, “They wouldn’t need to ask me…. I’d do it.” So I gave him a little audition on the spot, and I pretended like I was a dancer and he was interviewing me after my performance. And he realized right then and there how hard it was to be a host! A very funny moment! Although he added that because he’s doing “Brothers and Sisters” he actually probably won’t be able to do it.
6:30 PM — The first celeb to come through is John Waters, followed shortly thereafter by Taraji P. Henson, who looks stunning.
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