There Will Be Oscars

I always wondered, what do you do during those three to five hours?
Cotillard: I slept all the time.

Really?
Cotillard: Yes, we had almost 30 days of heavy makeup. I wanted to kill everybody, and especially everybody wanted to kill me. So they put me in a bed, and they did the makeup while I was sleeping. It was very funny because there's a guy who came to shoot video of me almost every day getting this done. And I saw the video, and they were doing things to me and I can't believe I didn't wake up. It was acrylic painting and latex and prosthetics, so there's glue and all that. Sometimes I had nightmares, and I would wake up with a big scream and cry. One day I was crying while I was sleeping, so the makeup artist's assistant had to spend four hours with tissues around my eyes, so the salt from my tears didn't spoil the makeup.

Were there ever roles that any of you ­regretted taking?
Jolie: That's part of it. You've got to have your bad ones.
Clooney: People will give you s--t later and say, "Why did you do this movie?" Because I needed a gig. Sometimes you just needed the job.

All the actors I've ever talked to always say they're afraid that every job they are ­offered is going to be their last.
Clooney: I still have that in me. You are always still auditioning in your head. If you don't think that way, then I think you are lost.
McAvoy: In your head, do you make yourself take off your clothes?
Clooney: Just now I did.
McAvoy: Excellent. And did you get the part?
Clooney: Hang on, wait, I'm still working on it. No, I did not. Clive Owen got it.

Ellen, because of the success of "Juno," are you now suddenly getting a lot of offers?
Page: More than I was a little while ago. Which is absolutely wonderful. Obviously that's the huge gift of a film like this doing so well. For an actor at any age, that's huge. But I am going to take my time.

There's a flip side, of course. Can some of you talk about moments where you failed?
McAvoy: I was once told that I'd never work in Scotland again. And it was on my third job.
Clooney: Really?
McAvoy: Yeah. And that's the end of that. I'm not going any further.
Clooney: I did a series called "Baby Talk." It's a little baby that has to talk—it was the "Look Who's Talking" sitcom. I have a whole list of really s--tty shows that I was really s--tty in. I'm really proud of them. I had a mullet in this one. I have a whole career with a mullet, actually. But this was a sitcom with a guy who was a very big, powerful producer. One of the first things he did was he fired the baby, which I thought was a little strange. And then the lead actress was fired. And then he started on me, and it was the worst experience of my life, because I had never been in that position, where you can't defend yourself. I remember—it was a very specific moment; it changed my career, actually—going home and I called up my agent and I said, "How bad does it get if I just say 'f--- you' to this guy?" And my agent goes, "It gets bad." And I said, "OK," and I walked in and the producer went after me and I said, "F--- you." And I got fired and sued by the network, though they eventually dropped all of that. It was a terrifying time, but it absolutely freed me up to the idea that the worst thing that could happen is-what? You take away my sitcom? It freed me up to decide that I was going to try to do better projects and not worry so much about succeeding. It changed everything for me.
McAvoy: Was the main problem between you and your mullet? [Laughter]
Clooney: Yes, it was.