Anthony Mackie doesn’t cut corners. He does the legwork. When he decided he wanted to act for a living, he applied to Juilliard. When he was cast as Sergeant J.T. Sanborn in Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, about military bomb squads in Iraq, he interviewed U.S. soldiers and experts over Skype and perused disturbing, explosives-obsessed Web sites like a 21st century Marlon Brando. When he needed to make it look like he was getting his ass kicked by Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby, he got his ass kicked by Morgan Freeman. (To be fair, that wasn’t Mackie’s choice—Freeman simply thought Mackie had dues to pay.) And to prepare for his upcoming starring role in Bolden!, about the legendary seminal jazz trumpeter Buddy Bolden, he took horn lessons from his fellow New Orleanian Wynton Marsalis, who provided the soundtrack. Currently appearing on Broadway in A Behanding at Spokane, the 30-year-old took the time to speak with me about projects past, present, and future, though I got the sense the only future he truly cared about, at the moment, is how his beloved Saints will do this weekend.

This may be a stupid question. What exactly is a “hurt locker”?

It’s a military term. It’s a term that [screenwriter] Mark Boal learned when he was embedded with an E.O.D. squad. When you get hurt, instead of saying, “So-and-so is in the doctor’s office,” or “So-and-so has a sprained ankle,” you say you’ve been “put in the hurt locker.” Like you’re on lock-down.

How did you prepare for your role in The Hurt Locker?

Just a lot of reading and communicating with people online. I feel like having the Internet as a tool is a huge advantage we have as actors now, because you don’t have to sleep under a bridge or go to strip clubs like Brando did to create Stanley Kowalski. You can just get online and look at images and talk to people from your home.

Wow, Method acting 2.0, I guess.

Millenium acting, Exactly. While I was in North Carolina working on a film about Buddy Bolden, I was online every day, just interviewing people and watching videos.

There it was, last night, plain as the nose on your face.

It was sitting there in the guest chair of The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien. It appeared to be uncharacteristically nervous. A little bit off its game. But charming nonetheless. Looking, as always, a bit like Jack Lemmon, in the body at least, or maybe Dick Van Dyke.

And maybe… je-e-e-e-est maybe… it appeared nervous because it knew something the rest of us don't know.

Knew something that even Conan didn't know.

What was it, you ask? It was… Joel McHale!

Joel and Conan talked pleasantly with each other. Both had recently bumped into each other at the Seattle airport. They mentioned their kids. Talked about having to sit in the back of the plane. A coupla white dads sittin' around talkin'.

In many ways, the BAFTAs are emblematic of the Special Relationship that binds Britain and the United States (not to read too much geopolitical significance into the awards process). Like 10 Downing Street, The British Academy of Film and Television Arts walks the line between abjectly succumbing to American dominance and defying American exceptionalism outright. While it can’t ignore Hollywood movies, for fear of alienating Britain’s own moviegoing public and lapsing into irrelevance, it does pay more attention than the Oscars to films from the Old World, and even devotes an entire category to the best British film of the year. As it is, it’s the only significant international stop on the awards-season tour.

This year’s BAFTA nominations were announced this morning. The great thing about the BAFTAs is that, instead of merely reshuffling all the awards-season mainstays, they direct our attention to movies that haven’t gotten their due recognition on this side of the pond, because they weren’t distributed Stateside, or perhaps because of some lingering resentment over taxation without representation. This year, the best-picture category contains what would likely have been the Oscar nominees had the list not been expanded to 10—only with the U.K.-produced An Education in the place of Inglourious Basterds.

Stiff-upper-lip, British recalcitrance is more evident in the best-director category, where Oscar frontrunners Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) and Lee Daniels (Precious) are traded in for South Africa’s Neill Blomkamp (District 9) and Denmark’s Lone Scherfig (An Education). And it's also worth mentioning that, as In Contention's Guy Lodge points out, while Avatar garnered the same number of nominations as An Education and The Hurt Locker (eight), James Cameron's previous endeavor, Titanic went 0 for 10 in 1998. Now that's defiance.

In the full list of nominees after the jump, we’ve highlighted the standout films and performances that, sadly, will realistically not get any Oscar love. Netflix them.

On the surface, Paul Bettany’s two movies coming out Friday couldn’t be more different. In Creation, a good, old-fashioned period piece released by Newmarket films, he plays Charles Darwin, torn between the implications of his revolutionary theories and the religious faith of his spouse (played by Bettany’s real-life wife, Jennifer Connelly). In Legion, meanwhile, he plays the Archangel Michael, who takes mankind’s side against a wrathful God in an apocalyptic battle, trading his wings for an AK-47. (Really, the trailer speaks for itself.) But both films actually exist on a continuum: whereas Creation focuses on mankind’s origin, Legion imagines its possible end. But let’s be frank: high among the reasons Bettany took on the projects is that he gets to play with monkeys in the former and toss a dwarf in the latter. (Read below for clarification.) 

Bettany has had one of the most variegated careers as an actor, alternating blockbusters (A Beautiful Mind) with dense art films (Lars Von Trier’s Dogville), romantic leads (Wimbledon) with villains (Firewall), deadbeat Southern dads (The Secret Life of Bees) with magical fairy-tale hobos (Inkheart) with the voice of a robotic supersuit (Iron Man). But his filmography reveals an abiding fascination with the Christian faith—which is surprising, considering the Brit is a staunch atheist, a fact he reminded me of early in our interview. Consider some of his iconic roles: Silas the killer albino monk in The Da Vinci Code; Stephen Maturin, the proto-Darwinian naturalist in Master and Commander; as well as Creation and Legion. To that list can be added the upcoming Priest, also directed by Legion director Scott Stewart, where Bettany plays a vampire-slaying man of the cloth.

In our interview, Bettany says the religious bent of his roles is just happenstance, explains why he can’t stand sex scenes in movies, and wonders how the oeuvre of Philip Roth could be enhanced by vampires.

Plus: View our slide show of Bettany’s photographs of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, accompanying A.A. Gill’s piece in our February issue, “Roll Over Charles Darwin.”

It’s the classic fan dilemma. You want success for the things you love and worship; but when your favorite brand, band, book, borough, or (in my case) bar garners too much attention, you begin to panic that it will irreparably change. The implosion can take a number of familiar forms. Its once-original schtick can harden into a desperate tic or pastiche (we call this Shyamalanization.) It can lose its way, and mire itself in a frantic and anguished search for direction (aka Busting an Axl.) Or it can compromise and dilute its core essence to the point of distancing itself from what made it original in the first place, thus attracting a bigger crowd at the expense of alienating its base (The Big O.) So when I heard that my beloved program Glee won a Golden Globe the other night for best TV Comedy or Musical, I felt as giddy as I did on receiving my first Marc Jacobs cashmere hoodie. But I could immediately see the pills forming on the sweater’s surface.

If you've seen a blockbuster in the past couple of decades, chances are you've heard one of composer Hans Zimmer's breathtaking scores, from The Thin Red Line to Gladiator, to last year’s The Dark Knight. The six-time Oscar nominee (he won in 1995 for The Lion King) was nice enough to invite Vanity Fair into the heart of his Santa Monica lair. Deep within his island of Teutonic darkness in sunny Southern California, Zimmer reveals how he created the wild, gypsy music-inspired score for Sherlock Holmes with the help of a beat-up, out-of-tune piano he bought on Craigslist for $100.

Film audiences caught their first real glimpse of Jennifer Beals 27 years ago in Flashdance, where she played a Pittsburgh steel-mill worker with a serious case of the jimmy legs. After a successful run on Showtime’s Sapphic TV drama The L Word, Beals returns in the Hughes Brothers’ grim futuristic parable, The Book Eli.

Though it didn’t quite knock Avatar off the pedestal as the Hughes brothers had hoped, the film clearly resonated with audiences during its opening weekend, notching an impressive $38 million at the box office, a record January take for Warner Bros. This story—a post-apocalyptic western about a lonely warrior (Denzel Washington) carrying the last extant copy of the Bible westward—doesn't shy away from its religious undertones. Beals plays Claudia, the blind companion to Gary Oldman’s villainous Carnegie, an Al Swearengen-esque gangleader who seeks the Bible for its power to control the fearful masses. The noble Claudia suffers his abuses in silence in order to protect her daughter, Solara (Mila Kunis).

In our interview, Beals justifies the film's Christian themes, discusses the scrap-books she makes for charity, and talks about the current state of the film industry, an environment in which Flashdance might not have come to fruition. Continue reading »

Oscar snubs tend to generate notice around this time of year due to their absence from the ubiquitous awards season frenzy. But these noticeable omissions, which currently include Anvil! The Story of Anvil (which failed to make the Academy’s documentary shortlist) and Sam Rockwell for his dual performances in Moon, at least have a fair amount of support in favor of their inclusions. By comparison, a number of well received indie movies barely ever had a chance of being nominated, no matter how many people would have liked to see it happen. These specialty titles lack both the money and big names that could help get them into the race. With virtually no traction in the industry, they sit on the sidelines by default.

Of all the movies released in the past 12 months, few seem to embody this problem more than Humpday. The overwhelmingly likeable Sundance favorite, about two old college buddies hesitantly planning a gay porn together, has a lot going for it: Strong critical praise, major media recognition as an improvement on the “bromance” and “mumblecore” trends, and an admirable theatrical run in limited release (close to half a million dollars worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo). All of these factors helped catapult 43-year-old Seattle director Lynn Shelton to the attention of audiences around the world. Dubbed “the female Apatow” (wrongly, perhaps, but it’s a catchy title nonetheless), Shelton had the potential to become the comedic equivalent of Kathryn Bigelow, another female director responsible for a runaway low-budget success story. Relying Iargely on improvised performances, Humpday’s off-the-cuff approach generated comparisons to the work of Mike Leigh, whose similarly crafted Happy-Go-Lucky ended up with a best-original-screenplay nomination last year.

All these elements notwithstanding, it seems unlikely that Humpday will play any role in the awards race. Co-stars Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair) and Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project) lack the star power to give the movie any leverage with Academy voters—if they had the chance to consider it in the first place, which they don’t, since Magnolia Pictures hardly funded a campaign for the film. In the distributor’s defense, why should they waste the money and time? Given its built-in financial and industrial limitations, Humpday is pretty much automatically shut out from the Oscar frenzy, and it’s not alone. Here are five more noteworthy 2009 releases suffering from “The Humpday Effect.” Can you think of others? Let your suggestions fly in the comments.

The Golden Globes get a bum rap. Yes, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's credentials are iffy and its impartiality is questionable. And yes, in terms of prestige, the awards are lumpfish roe to the Oscar's caviar. But there is one key element that makes the dish go down easy, and takes a bit of the self-important edge off these awards shows: alcohol. Unlike the Academy Awards ceremony, which tends to sag by hour three, the Globes get more fun as time goes by. Cheeks start to get ruddy, and acceptance speeches stumble into incoherence. Plus, the Globes don't bother with any of those pesky technical—or in the industry parlance, "ugly-people"—awards, which leaves more time for the beautiful stars.

This year's event seems especially promising. First, the always irreverent Ricky Gervais is hosting. (The Globes are finally embracing their reputation for informality and rowdiness.) Second, this is one of the first times ex-spouses and current competitors James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow will be seen in a room together during this awards season. Consider it a test-run for Cameron to perfect his gracious-while-not-entirely-emasculated loser face before the Oscars. [Read below to see me eat my words.]

To help chronicle the evening, Vanity Fair has assembled a crack team of livebloggers, including Little Gold Men's Julian Sancton, special LGM correspondents Rebecca Keegan and John Lopez, and Christopher Barnard, of V.F.'s fashion department, who will be judging the evening from a sartorial perspective. So, starting at seven p.m. Eastern Time, catch up on our awards coverage, make yourself a pitcher of one of our delicious signature cocktails, and enjoy the next three hours. (Same instructions apply if you're reading this Monday or Tuesday morning.)

Let’s just admit it: the Golden Globes are about the awards as much as Thanksgiving dinner is about giving thanks—really, everyone’s just waiting for that special time of night when drunk Uncle Mel gets up on the table, waves a cross in the air, and denies the Holocaust. After all, it’s these Golden memories that stay with you long after you’ve woken from your open bar-fueled daze to ask yourself how exactly Nine ended up winning Best Musical or Comedy.

So, we here at Vanity Fair would like to dredge up the past and list the 10 moments from the Golden Globes your Hollywood family members desperately wishes you could forget.

10. In case you were tempted to think the Golden Globes were about awards, Chicago Hope’s Christine Lahti shattered all such illusions in 1998 when Michael J. Fox announced that she had won best actress in a TV series, only to learn Lahti was in the bathroom. Had the notoriously free-flowing alcohol taken its toll on Lahti? Perhaps to distract the audience from speculating, Robin Williams jumped on stage and filled the booze-y silence with Southern cousin jokes until the winner arrived. Renee Zellweger also pulled a “Lahti” in 2001 when she won for Nurse Betty, but to be fair, not even the Hollywood Foreign Press saw that award coming.

Katee Sackhoff hasn’t always been the gun-toting badass who makes the nerd boys swoon. Back in 2004, she was probably most famous for not being Dirk Benedict. In the Syfy Network’s remake of Battlestar Galactica—based on a cheesy science fiction series from 1978 that, even if we’re being generous, was never more than a poor man’s Star Wars—Sackhoff played a character named Kara ‘‘Starbuck’’ Thrace, a chain-smoking, hard-living pilot loosely based on another character named Starbuck, played by Benedict in the original Battlestar and who, unlike the updated Starbuck, had feathered hair and a penis. Fans were outraged—including Benedict himself, who wrote an angry missive about how feminism was ruining Hollywood. But then people actually watched the show, and wouldn’t you know it, Sackhoff was pretty damn good. What’s not to love about an attractive blonde who cold-cocks aliens, has crazy recreational sex, and is comfortable using weapons larger than her torso?

Battlestar went on to become a cult phenomenon, garnering awards and blogger adulation during its four seasons between 2004 and 2008. Almost exactly a year after the show ended, Sackhoff returns to television with a supporting role on Fox’s 24—which returns for its eighth season this Sunday, January 17th—as data analyst Dana Walsh. This time, the outrage is in Sackhoff’s favor. Fans across the globe agree: A data analyst? Hiring the ball-busting actress to play a character who sits in front of a computer is like asking Ron Jeremy to play a character who wears pants. Where are the guns, the grit, the "this-will-hurt-you-more-than-it-hurts-me" sexuality? During a 24 panel at last summer’s ComicCon, Sackhoff addressed the elephant in the room, explaining that she agreed to play the desk-bound character only after telling the writers that "at some point I need a gun, preferably two." The crowd, not surprisingly, went nuts.

During our interview, Sackhoff expressed concern that this story would be titled "Katee Sackhoff Calls Dirk Benedict Douchey McDoucherson." So let’s get one thing clear right up front: She does not think Dirk Benedict is a douche. She does, however, think the sun is powered by Hitler on a hamster wheel in Hell (it’s a long story) and that the unofficial title of her yet-unwritten autobiography will be My Ass Is On Fire (another long story). She also felt entirely comfortable using the word "vagina" no less than a dozen times during our conversation, and that’s gotta be some kind of record.

I meet the twin directors Allen and Albert Hughes at the infamous Chateau Marmont, in Los Angeles. Surrounded by hipsters in hats pulled over week-old scruff, we discuss their new feature, The Book of Eli. When I tried to take a few snapshots of them I was immediately reprimanded for breaking the Chateau’s no-camera rule. Don’t they realize they have legends in their midst?

Half African-American (on their father's side), half Armenian (mother's), the Hughes Brothers, as they jointly credit themselves in their films, have have been at the directing game since they were 12 years old, when their mother gave them a simple video camera. Their first feature, 1993's Menace II Society, came out shortly after their 20th birthday. Three years later they made Dead Presidents, about disillusioned, black Vietnam vets. Then, in 1999, they produced and directed American Pimp, a fascinating documentary about the skin trade in black communities, which they followed up with 2001's From Hell, based on Allen Moore's gory, cult graphic novel about Jack the Ripper, starring Johnny Depp.

After that film the siblings drifted apart, at least geographically, as Albert moved semi-permanently to Prague, where From Hell was filmed and where he had a girlfriend. The couple broke up three days before I spoke with the brothers, though, and, as an indication of how differentiated the brothers have become, Albert wanted to wait a few weeks before telling Allen. But at age 38, after an eight-year hiatus during which they directed music videos and commercials, they are back in a big way.

Sandra Bullock is reciting the lyrics to Baby Got Back and forking a piece of a jiggly, Italian dessert off a passing waiter’s tray at the ivy-draped Beverly Hills restaurant Il Cielo. Shimmering in a red cocktail dress and stilt-like heels, the actress greets a visor-clad friend by hollering over the crowd noise, “What the heck is on your head?” This is not— for the record—how people typically act while being feted at an Oscar party. But nothing about Bullock’s path to this awards season has been typical.

The actress who broke out in a movie about a runaway bus forced to travel over 50 miles per hour has moved at her own speed professionally, and it’s paying off at age 45. In the past month, Bullock has collected two Golden Globe nominations, for her performances in The Blind Side and The Proposal. She won a People’s Choice Award and broke a box office record, as The Blind Side became the first film carried by a woman to crack $200 million at the domestic box office. And now Bullock is on the short list for an Oscar nomination, for playing The Blind Side’s Gucci-clad, .22-packing football matriarch, Leigh Anne Tuohy.

It’s a performance with no sobbing, yelling, internal torture or external malady— nothing to cue critics or audiences that This is awards-caliber, serious acting. Instead, Bullock shows us Tuohy’s matter-of-fact compassion as she makes up a bed for a boy who has never had one. The audience can cry, but Bullock plays it as a quickly swallowed lump in the throat. “I know I won’t burst into tears in front of a group of people,” says Bullock, her ponytail swishing the cluster of press and well-wishers waiting to talk to her. “And I don’t think you should do it too much in movies. It’s like you’re telling the audience they’re supposed to feel something.”

Two-thousand-nine was a very good year for Maggie Gyllenhaal. In February, she appeared onstage in a New York production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya alongside Peter Sarsgaard, her longtime fiancÉ and father to their three-year-old daughter. In May, the two were married in Europe. And last month, she starred in first-time director Scott Cooper's independent gem, Crazy Heart, in which she plays a young journalist who falls in love with Jeff Bridges's down-and-out former country music legend, Bad Blake, and offers the key to his salvation. Her performance helps to ground the film as well as give dimension to the character of Bad.

With a director father, Stephen, and a screenwriter mother, Naomi Foner, Maggie and her brother, Jake, were children of show business. Since her much-lauded breakthrough performance as an s&m; amanuensis in 2002's Secretary, Gyllenhaal has added a number of prestigious credits to her name. Yet Hollywood couldn't contain her long. She migrated to New York, where she went to college (Columbia), and where she now lives with Sarsgaard and their child.

Maggie has appeared in Vanity Fair several times, first as a Vanities opener back in 2002, and then on the 13th annual Hollywood Cover, in 2004. Maggie and I hadn’t seen each other in a while, so we caught up about our perilous dance with motherhood, her film Crazy Heart, the lure of Brooklyn, and the Oscar race.