Oscar Nominees Do Lunch

With Hollywood's biggest night, the Oscars ceremony, right around the around the corner, some of world's top movie stars gathered Monday for the annual Academy Award nominees luncheon.

The Early Show national correspondent Hattie Kauffman says the nominees come together to break bread, and bask in their glory.

Felicity Huffman kidded, "I have to turn to my husband several times a day and do that annoying thing of like, 'Hey, I forgot to tell you something,' and he's like, 'What?' (And I say), 'I'm going to the Academy Awards!' "

Remarked Terrence Howard, "There's less air up here, less oxygen up here, so I'm still kind of floating my way through it."

"Never in a million years," said Charlize Theron, "would I ever have believed if somebody said, 'In a two year period, you're going to be nominated twice.' It's like, somehow, I got locked in the candy store and nobody knows I'm there. And I'm having a great time."

One of parts of the lunch that's the most fun, Kauffman says, is the table-hopping, the hobnobbing the nominees get to do. The celebrities star gaze "just like the rest of us."

Celebs such as Keira Knightley, who said, "I just saw George Clooney. I thought that was quite cool!"

Clooney is up for three awards: best supporting actor for "Syriana," and for directing and writing "Good Night and Good Luck." Both movies are politically charged.

"I'm bringing Dick Cheney as my date," Clooney joked. "I don't know if that's overtly political.

"It's so nice, he called me up and invited me to go hunting," Clooney chuckled.

Reese Witherspoon has already won multiple awards for her role as June Carter in the Johnny Cash film, "Walk the Line" but, thanks to her five-year-old daughter, she's keeping things in perspective.

"When I won the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) award," Witherspoon recalled, "I said, 'Mommy won an award last night.' And she said, 'Well, that's 'cause you're the best mommy in the world."

Three nominees missed the lunch because of the big snowstorm that hit New York: actors Rachel Weisz and Paul Giamatti, and Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee.