Bradley Cooper and Paul Giamatti share how they prepared for their roles at the National Board of Review Awards Gala

Reviews all over the Board

The National Board of Review usually leads the pre-Oscar Academy events.

Place: Cipriani 42nd Street. President: Annie Schulhof. Time: usually 6 p.m.

Anne Hathaway. Floor-length formfitting gown. “I’m here to present to Bradley Cooper who’s getting the Icon award. We’re friends. I knew his film ‘Maestro’ was great first time I saw it. And Carey Mulligan is incandescent in it. We went out afterward and had a hamburger together.”

Fellow presenter Jessica Chastain: “Listen, I’m like a nun tonight. I’m into nothing of my own. I had nothing. I own nothing. I borrowed everything.” Her necklace was small. Very small. Better she should have borrowed from a richer jeweler.

PR whisperer Will Wilbur, sharing a backstage throne Schulhof — in a Thom Browne pantsuit — set up for me — nudged me.

Hulking gentlemen in long, long black braids down the back arrived. I haven’t seen “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

It’s so long that to sit through it I’d need an emergency visit from my electrologist — still I knew these weren’t extras from the “Barbie” movie.

I was eager to speak with them. However, they did not share my enthusiasm.

Holding out hope

In came Paul Giamatti. So magnificent in “The Holdovers” that I pray for him to win.

“I grew up around those kids who are portrayed in the film,” he said. “That was my growing up life. I personally knew these holdovers — alone, no family to go to holidays. Was rough. I went to school with them and I have nothing but sympathy for them — even though many were just snotty rich kids.”

Everyone arrived trailed by their p.r. rep. Mark Ruffalo, best supporting nom for “Poor Things,” arrived with his wife: “So far, I already did four events. Day after tomorrow I fly to LA for more.”

Tony McNamara, of “Poor Things,” so how long’s it take to write your winning screenplay? He said: “Would you believe three years? First draft on a yellow pad in longhand took six weeks. Drove my family crazy.”

And out of the mouth of somebody I heard: “Nikki Haley? She’d be nobody if it weren’t for peeing on Trump.”

These acts are tough to follow

Near the end of the arrivals Bradley Cooper who immortalizes Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro,” up for many awards.

So, he ever meet Bernstein? “No. But I knew family members. And I did lots of research. You just can’t change something that moves you.”

Major conversation is the prosthetic nose attached to him in the film. “I’m asked what I’ve done with it and am I keeping it. The answer is I just do not yet know what to do with that nose.”

Canvas was strung along the building’s facade to act — if necessary — as protection. Security specialist Mike Zimet told me: “We’re patting down anyone wearing a bulky jacket or coat that might hide some weapon. We’re taking no chances.”

Sitting there I realized how truly wonderful are actors. They’re originators of the blood, sweat and tears credo.

They give blood to the Red Cross. They host mercy benefits. They sweat to make the Big Time. They shed tears when one performance out of a thousand — instead of grabbing an Oscar — lays an egg.

And no more poking fun at Biden. I want everyone to have respect. I hear the man loves fishing. Once he was even stranded on a frozen pond. Which leads to the conclusion that it takes a real “ice-hole” to fish in the winter.

Only in DC, kids, only in DC.

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