Oscar Nominees Gather for Luncheon - East Idaho News
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Oscar Nominees Gather for Luncheon

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109262270?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1360058421694ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images(BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.) — A luncheon honoring this year’s Oscar nominees was held in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Monday.  Also there was the year’s most notable snub: Ben Affleck.

Of course, Affleck said all the right things to the media at the event, again suggesting he is not bothered that he was left out of the best director category despite his well-received work on Argo.

He said, “I just feel so incredibly honored to be nominated as a producer for this movie, to be here at the big party.  It’s tremendous.  I mean, we got seven nominations, including best picture.  I’m elated by that.  Truly, genuinely thrilled.”

There was also plenty of talk at the luncheon about what the nominees will wear on the red carpet of the Oscars ceremony.

Jessica Chastain, a best actress nominee for her role in Zero Dark Thirty, said she will wear something “colorful.”  She remarked, “Most little girls dream about their wedding dresses, but I always dreamed about my Oscar dress.”

One of her rivals in the best actress race, Silver Linings Playbook star Jennifer Lawrence, isn’t nearly as worried about how she’ll look on the big night.  She said, “That’s a problem with the Oscars, they’re always at the end, where you’re just exhausted from dressing up.  So I never care.”

Anne Hathaway, a best supporting actress nominee for Les Miserables, hasn’t given her Oscar dress much thought yet because she was too focused on the Super Bowl.  She joked, “I couldn’t think about dresses with all that delicious fried food around.”

The producers of ABC’s Oscars telecast, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, were also on hand at the luncheon.  They said they’ve watched 40 years’ worth of past Academy Awards ceremonies in order to educate themselves on how they can cut out a lot of the “pauses” and keep the show moving.

When they were asked whether they will have an oversized red button they can press to censor Oscars host Seth MacFarlane, Meron replied in the negative, adding, “Seth is Seth and we love and we welcome his brand.”

The Oscars will air on ABC on Feb. 24.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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