AFTER SITTING up in the gods of the Kodak Theatre for the first two segments of the Oscars, I realised that I was seeing nothing different from those watching on TV. The new tactic of collecting nominees on stage or presenting the awards in the audience was being looked on with derision. It was all a little disappointing and lacklustre. I wanted to see what happened behind the scenes, see the stars acting normally rather than reading from an autocue.

On the red carpet the stars and the rest are separated by a velvet rope. The stars slowly make their way down, stopping for interviews and photos along the way. The people on the other side walk just as slowly, savouring the opportunity to be close to Warren and Annette, and see Gwyneth up close. Inside the theatre, though, there was no dividing rope, and after leaving my seat I set out to explore freely.

My first stop was the smoking area, which Johnny Depp and Sean Penn had made their hangout in previous years. The smoking area belonged more to a high school than it did to the most glamorous event of the year, with smokers banished to the crummy lobby of the Mall that the Kodak is part of. There I saw Sophie Okonedo, who was disappointingly overlooked in the Best Supporting Actress, having a welcome nicotine fix. I offered my sympathy but she seemed unsurprised and unbothered.

The ground foyer was where the A-list stars could be seen. And you could tell from the way people reverently touched Oprah Winfrey — and the fact that she was the only person with her own bodyguard — that she was undoubtedly the head girl. I saw Clint Eastwood walking towards me with Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church from Sideways. In the bar, I overheard Orlando Bloom and Jake Gyllenhaal discussing what films they’d seen recently, and saw Mickey Rooney (“I thought he was dead!”, someone near me said) bustling to keep up with his wife (his eighth, I believe).

While the carefully planned and pre-scripted show went on inside, I was confident that the show behind the show would be more intriguing. The people who got closest to the stars were the seat-fillers, people who made it appear that there were no gaps in the audience, by taking the place of the stars throughout the show whenever they left their seats. They told me which stars were too snobbish to acknowledge their presence (Charlize Theron, Jeremy Irons), but were equally keen to coo over those who had treated them well, such as Pierce Brosnan, who, despite having lost his voice, charmed the filler next to him with his conversation.

I began to see more people walking around with golden statuettes clutched in their hands. Despite the huge importance of winning an Oscar, many of them looked underwhelmed and disappointed that though they had won, say, best documentary, there was not the mass adulation and congratulations that should logically accompany it. It looked almost as if the runners-up, who were getting hugs of consolation and words of optimistic encouragement, were doing better out of the two.

As the ceremony neared its close, we came to the presentation of the Best Actress and Actor awards, and as each was about to be read out there was a sudden and spontaneous hush in the foyer. These were the first awards that mattered. At the announcement of Jamie Foxx’s win, there was a huge cheer from the foyer and bar crowd. He was clearly the people’s choice, and had been the one real shoo-in of the night.

The saddest moment was seeing Martin Scorsese once again passed over for Best Director on the night it seemed impossible he could be allowed to lose. When Clint Eastwood instead got the call, someone said “I told you so”.

I hope Scorsese shares something of Imelda Staunton’s spirit. My most enjoyable moment was chatting with her at the bar. I told her how much her acting in Vera Drake had affected me and that I felt she deserved to win. “I won’t, of course,” she said, adding perkily, “I’ve got enough awards on the mantelpiece already.”