Golden Globes 2013: Tough (and tired) crowd at Beverly Hilton

By Laura J. Nelson

Dec. 13, 2012 12 AM PT

By the time Megan Fox, Ed Helms and Jessica Alba strode into the Beverly Hilton ballroom at 5:20 a.m., their captive audience of reporters and publicists seemed nearly comatose.

Press check-in for the Golden Globes ceremony had begun more than an hour before. Some publicists said they hadn’t slept Wednesday night. And it showed.

Aside from a few nods or nudges, most of the 25 categories announced Thursday morning — and the jokes that came with them — garnered no reaction.

Golden Globe nominations: The complete list

That could be because many of the nominations came as no surprise: “Argo,” “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty” topped the list of contenders.

Two announcements that caused a stir were for Hollywood veterans. Muttering and nudging broke out in the crowd as Ewan MacGregor’s name was read for best actor for his role in “Salmon Fishing in The Yemen.” And when Meryl Streep was nominated for best actress for her role in “Hope Springs,” someone in the audience said, “Are you kidding?” in a stage whisper that carried over the audience.

Fox stumbled over the pronunciation of “Anna Karenina” — four times. The audience laughed at that one.

Moments later, Alba lost her place as she read and reshuffled her papers on the podium, thinking she was looking at the wrong category.

“Oops, nope, I’m on the right page,” she said, as the audience roared. “You know what? A little laughter in the morning’s not bad for anybody.”

But the most laughter began when Helms announced that Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, this year’s Golden Globes hosts, had both been nominated for best actress in a comedy or musical television series.

Fey was nominated for her role as Liz Lemon in NBC’s “30 Rock,” Poehler for playing Leslie Knope on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation.” Fey won in 2007, 2008 and 2009 for the same role, and was nominated in 2010 and 2011. Poehler was also nominated last year.

“It will be interesting to see how they deal with it,” said Orly Adelson, president of Dick Clark Productions, after the announcement. “You never know what the two women will do together while they wait to see who wins.”

Poehler and Fey had been the top choice for the Golden Globe’s parent organization, the Hollywood Foreign Press Agency, president Aida Takla-O’Reilly said, noting that she admires the duo’s easy rapport built on years of working together on “Saturday Night Live.”

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