When it comes to Oscars, stars play to win

Movie stars may say, "oh, it's nice just to be nominated." But don't believe it - not all of it, anyway, not when it comes to the Oscars.

Those humble-sounding stars really want to win Hollywood's highest honor, an Oscar, set to be handed out at the 74th Annual Academy Awards on March 24 in a ceremony broadcast to nearly 1 billion people worldwide and hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.

"Almost everyone in the business has dreamed of it," said A Beautiful Mind director Ron Howard at this week's annual nominee lunch given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars.

Britain's Tom Wilkinson, a best actor nominee for In the Bedroom, said top actors "play to win."

Supporting actor nominee Jon Voight for Ali, said there are many awards shows, but "the big one is the Academy Award."

Winning means an instant legacy for a fresh face like Halle Berry of Monster's Ball, or a career's climax for an industry veteran such as child-actor turned director Howard.

This year, studio-sponsored Oscar promotion campaigns have been more expensive - and negative - than ever. Still, the race is wide open in many categories including best picture.

A week from Sunday, underneath sequined gowns and crisp tuxedos, the stars will be shaking in their slippers.

"I've given the speech in the shower many times over the years," Howard said. "And I can't remember the speech, now that there's a possibility I might need it."

Mind games:

Beautiful Mind, about the ravages of schizophrenia on the human psyche, has raked in many awards and last Sunday, Howard won best director honors from the Directors Guild of America.

That put Beautiful Mind atop the heap of Oscar candidates because since 1949, all but five DGA winners have taken home the golden Oscar, and, in general, the winner of the best director Oscar also claims best picture.

But not so fast, Oscar watchers.

Last year, best director and best picture honors split between Steven Soderbergh for Traffic and Gladiator.

What's more, Robert Altman's tale of British classism, Gosford Park, took best ensemble cast at the Screen Actors Guild.

That might have set the stage for Sunday's big battle, except that 20th Century Fox's Moulin Rouge producers, including director Baz Luhrmann, won the top movie award from Hollywood's producers guild.

Early front-runner fantasy The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring remains the most nominated picture with 13, and is the only one of the five best picture nominees that has the sweeping, epic quality Academy voters love.

The long-shot, for now, is drama In the Bedroom, about a father and mother grieving over their son's death. But Bedroom is backed by Miramax Films, which has built a reputation for Oscar upsets with past winners The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love.

Final Oscar ballots are due from Academy voters on March 19, so the campaigns continue for about a week. The promotion - as well as the politics - have been stunning and brutal.

Show of shows:

Last week, 20th Century Fox hired live dancers to Can-Can atop a Sunset Strip hotel to promote Moulin Rouge.

Behind the glitz, however, controversy has swirled around the recent publication of a letter attacking Jews by the Nobel-prize winning mathematician John Nash, the subject of Beautiful Mind.

Nash wrote the letter in 1967, eight years after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and the film's principals have expressed dismay at what they see as an orchestrated campaign to convince Academy voters that Nash was no hero.

"It appears at that time he was absolutely overtaken by the disease of schizophrenia," said Russell Crowe. "To quote the statements as something that is meaningful ... is beyond irresponsible."

Crowe plays Nash, and he has claimed several early awards. But he faces Miramax-backed Wilkinson in Bedroom, Will Smith in Ali and Denzel Washington as a bad cop in Training Day. The longshot is Sean Penn for family drama I Am Sam.

Crowe won last year, and Academy voters rarely give an Oscar to an actor two years in a row.

Washington may be a sentimental favorite, having lost two years ago for The Hurricane. Yet, Oscar voters only once bestowed the best actor award on an African American - Sidney Poitier for 1963's Lillies of the Field.

Washington said he thought Academy members nominated the best performances, period. "It would be dangerous for (them) to start picking people just because they are African American."

Washington, Smith and Halle Berry of racially-charged Monster's Ball are the only three African Americans nominated this year in top categories - the first time since 1972 that so many African Americans have been nominated in key groupings.

Belles of oscar ball:

Berry, a down-and-out waitress in the movie, was viewed as the runner-up to Sissy Spacek for In the Bedroom until last Sunday when she took the SAG best actress honors over Spacek, who plays the grieving mother in Bedroom.

Nicole Kidman has an outside shot after a dynamic performance as nightclub singer Satine in Moulin Rouge, while Britain's Dame Judi Dench (Iris) and Renee Zellweger for Bridget Jones's Diary have fallen back in the pack.

Security will be tight. Already, the area around the new Kodak Theater in downtown Hollywood has been roped off.

Oscar returns to Hollywood for the first time since 1960, after being held in various Los Angeles venues. Many stars dressed down at awards shows after Sept 11, but producer Laura Ziskin told nominees to dress up for a good time.

"It'll be one big party from beginning to end," she said.

It's Hollywood's biggest night of the year, and it's a night the stars have been dreaming about for years.