Oscar Watch: Where Nominees Can—and Can't (Sorry, Grammys)—Go

Acting hopefuls expected to lay low on Sunday, leaving the paparazzi to the music industry

And on Sunday, the Oscar Nominees Rested: This weekend's Grammys will be a great place to see who John Mayer's dating this weekend. It will not be a great place to see, say, Anne Hathaway's latest red carpet dress.

That Hathaway is not expected to be a presence at the Grammys is no surprise—she's a movie star, not a recording star. Then again, she is an Oscar hopeful, one of the season's canniest as pundits keep reminding. Wouldn't it be savvy for her and her fellow Oscar nominees to serve as Grammy presenters? (None were scheduled to do so.) Would it kill Philip Seymour Hoffman to rock the house with Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus?

No, and perhaps, but that last question's beside the point, which is to lay low.

"If it was another film industry event, I would most likely encourage it as they would be among their peers," Lee Wallman, a Hollywood publicist who guided Patricia Clarkson through the 2003-04 Oscar season, said in an email. "But because the Grammys is a night that celebrates the music industry's finest, I would be concerned that their visibility may come off as campaigning, even if that wasn't the intention."

Places Oscar Nominees Can Go: Saturday's Writers Guild of America Awards, which will boast as presenters Josh Brolin, Frank Langella and Taraji P. Henson, and TV talk shows—any and all TV talk shows, as the Los Angeles Times points out in this helpful viewing guide to the on-the-campaign-trail chatty actor.

One Place Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Did Not Go: The his-and-her nominees were notable no-shows, along with Meryl Streep, at this past week's Oscar Nominees Luncheon, which was attended by, yes, Hathaway (and also by Kate Winslet, Mickey Rourke, Robert Downey Jr., Brolin, Langella, Henson and the always-accommodating Sean Penn, among others).

Somewhere Morgan Freeman Can Go Without Fear of Looking Like He's Campaigning: The Grammys! With The Dark Knight shut out of the Best Picture race, Freeman can concentrate on being cool, presenting and, oh, perhaps, mentioning his new movie Thick as Thieves, opening April 17. Fellow presenter Dwayne Johnson, he of the upcoming and as-of-yet-unnominated Race to Witch Mountain, is similarly unburdened.

(Originally published Feb. 6, 2009 at 3:17 p.m. PT)