Happy Awards Season, everybody! It's that time of year again when Hollywood begins rolling out the red carpet and doesn't stop until the last Oscar stauette is handed out on March 2. Here, I give you my top 10 favorite red carpet interviews of 2013...
1. Jessica Chastain: What better way to start things off than with the birthday surprise I got from the Zero Dark Thirty star. It's almost a year ago to the day that the she serenaded me with "Happy Birthday" at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards because the show happened to fall on b-day. The impromptu performance also marked Chastain's on-camera singing debut!
2. Brad Pitt: In June, I flew to London to cover the premiere of World War Z, where Pitt and I talked about Angelina Jolie's decision to go public about her double mastectomy (the premiere was her first red carpet since announcing she had undergone the surgery). "That's who I fell in love with from the very beginning," he told me. "The person that you see now is the person that I've always known and she's heroic and incredibly strong and will attack any problem head-on and make it work."
Talking to Pitt about falling in love with Jolie was both exciting and quite surreal. And then there was our chat about...body odor!
3. Taylor Swift: In July, I proposed to my boyfriend of almost two years, Fabian Quezada. A couple of months later, I talked to Swift at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of One Chance. The first thing she did when she saw me was congratulate me on our engagement! I, of course, asked if she'd sing at our wedding. When Swift asked when it was happening, I said, "Whenever you can sing at it." (For the record, we got married on Jan. 3.)
4. Marta Kauffman: If there's one story that will never die it's the ongoing rumors that a Friends reunion is in the works. Well, in April, I went to the big decision maker herself for some answers. No, not Jennifer Aniston or Courteney Cox—but Kauffman, one of the show's cocreators. "I'm going to clear this up—it's not happening!" she told me at a screening of Call Me Crazy, Lifetime's movie about mental illness. "Friends was about that time in your life when your friends are your family and once you have a family, there's no need anymore."
5. Oprah Winfrey: OK, I'm going to cheat a little because my next favorite moment wasn't on the red carpet. But how can I tell you about interviewing celebs this year without mentioning the time I chatted with Winfrey for the first time at the Hollywood Reporter's Women in Entertainment Breakfast. She couldn't have been more gracious. I simply introduced myself and said I'd love to get a comment or two about her Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for her work in The Butler and competing against her good friend Julia Roberts. Heck, we could have talked about paint drying and I still would have told you about interviewing Winfrey for the first time.
6. Julia Roberts: I caught up with Roberts at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of August: Osage County in September and then again at the film's L.A. premiere in December. We talked cooking (she says she's a really good cook), directing (she doesn't want to) and Glee (she'd be into appearing on the show during its upcoming final season). And yes, Roberts' world famous smile and laugh in person is as awesome as you'd expect.
7. Stephen Moyer: Not sure if he realized it at the time, but Moyer broke some very major news with me at the season six premiere of True Blood in Hollywood. He not only talked about his and Anna Paquin's twins, but much to my surprise, he said their names—Poppy and Charlie. Up until then, no one knew their names. Breaking news like that on a red carpet is gold!
8. Lily Tomlin: The 74-year-old comedy legend may not be a celebrity we cover much at E! News, but we made international headlines together when she revealed to me for the first time in August that she and her partner of 42 years, Jane Wagner, were thinking about getting married. The next time I saw Tomlin, she said with a big smile, "You made me go viral!" (Tomlin and Wagner married on New Year's Eve!)
9. Charlize Theron: I didn't try to make the Oscar winner emotional at Variety's Power of Women luncheon in October. But that's what I did when I asked Theron if her philanthropic work fighting HIV/AIDS in her native South Africa took on more meaning after becoming a mom when she adopted her son Jackson in March 2012. "It's definitely different, because you start thinking about the legacy that you want to leave behind for your child," she said while fighting back tears. "I want him to be proud of me in a way that's authentic."
10. Bow Ties: I certainly couldn't talk about my year of interviews without a mention of... my bow ties! Not a red carpet goes by that a celebrity doesn't make note of my signature (and usually colorful) accessory. Whether it's Mark Ruffalo telling me that tying a bow tie could be better than sex or George Clooney straightening mine at a recent BAFTA gala, talking about bow ties makes everyone happy. And no doubt I'll be chatting with Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom star Idris Elba in the next coming weeks—can't wait to ask him about his recent naughty bow tie tweets.