AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill7:28 p.m.: Robert Duvall, another winner for Broken Trail, sounds every bit like the plainspoken men of the Old West he plays so well. "It worked out," Duvall says simply of his parents' suggestion he take up acting.
7:41 p.m.: Al Gore is the Helen Mirren of former vice presidents. When last we met, he was celebrating An Inconvenient Truth's Oscar win. Now he's hoisting a special Emmy for his cable venture Current TV and being asked if he intended to go for the Tony. "Thank you very much," Gore says, supplying the reporter's rim shot.
7:45 p.m.: I know politicians aren't known for their candor, but I'm banking Gore will be the one to tell us whether we pressroom creatures look better without all the fluorescent lighting.
7:46 p.m.: "I think they're using LEDs back here," Gore says, craning his neck. "I know that sounds like a geek or a wonk."
8:20 p.m.: Yes, Mr. Gore, it does. And it doesn't answer my question.
8:21 p.m.: Scary thought: Maybe Mr. Gore is too nice to tell me and my colleagues that the purple-hued chandeliers make us look worse.
7:50 p.m.: Eightysomething Tony Bennett, toting his Emmy for his variety special Tony Bennett: An American Classic, moves a little stiffly, but he can still project to the back of the room. "Thank you very much!" he booms.
8:01 p.m.: Does Jerry Bruckheimer, holding The Amazing Race's latest Reality-Competition Emmy, have any mercy for the perennially winless American Idol? Well, not really. "We just want to keep winning it," says Bruckheimer.
—Filed by Joal Ryan