It didn't seem possible that anyone could've stolen Dreamgirls' thunder last night at the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards — the musical danced away with the most movie honors of the night — but for a moment backstage in the press room, it looked as if the cast and crew of Grey's Anatomy unintentionally tried their darnedest to do so. Just as Dreamgirls producer Lawrence Mark stepped to the microphone to face the 50 or so members of the media, Grey's creator Shonda Rhimes could be heard hooting ''Seriously?!'' and Mark was all but drowned out by the entire Grey's squad's celebratory whooping in the next room.

That all came to a halt, however, once the Grey's group took their turn at the mic. The first question was about the infamous Patrick Dempsey/Isaiah Washington fight, which involved Washington reportedly using an anti-gay epithet about fellow cast member T.R. Knight; those reports subsequently prompted Knight to come out publicly. Knight tried to lighten the mood by cracking in a goofy voice, ''What fight?!'' But before Rhimes could get a word in, Washington raced to the mic and dropped this rhetorical bomb: ''No, I did not call T.R. a faggot. Never happened.'' (Well, Mr. Washington, you kinda just did.)

Knight and the rest of the cast remained stone-faced as Washington retreated back to his corner of the press-room dais and Rhimes tried her best to close the matter: ''Things were [spun] in a very odd way by the press that were not necessarily true," she said. "We are just excited we won the Golden Globe.'' The damage, however, was already done: Grey's Anatomy wins the coveted EW.com 2007 Backstage Golden Globes Award for Most Awkward Moment.

Most of the backstage action, thank goodness, was not nearly as ripe with cast dysfunction and tension. Forthwith, our EW.com Backstage Golden Globe Awards!

Coolest Cat: Jennifer Hudson
You'd think a rookie actress who just took her first big step toward taking home an Oscar would be, you know, nervous, or at least a bit excitable, but Best Supporting Actress winner Hudson was the very model of easy-going cool. Grinning and relaxed, she gamely answered questions about her weight, American Idol, and the late Florence Ballard, a former member of the Supremes and the ostensible model for Hudson's character in Dreamgirls. When someone finally called Hudson on her nonchalant calm, Hudson responded, ''I am not a party girl, so I will just have to celebrate quietly and probably cry all night.'' All evidence to the contrary, it seems.

Best Random Gratitude: Kyra Sedgwick
Maybe she was still partly in character as her alter ego on The Closer, but as the winner of the Best Actress in a Drama award, Sedgwick could not stop thanking people. She even made a point of thanking the man who announced her approach to the stage, ''for everything.''

Longest-winded wit: Hugh Laurie
In contrast to his pithy acceptance speech, once backstage the House star held court on a variety of subjects, from whether he'd partaken of his character's regimen of narcotic pain relievers — yes, but just once — to what this year's red carpet experience was like. ''[It was] fine because I rode the wave of Ben [Affleck] and Jennifer [Garner], like an old plastic bag, just sort of bogging along,'' Laurie quipped. When asked about the difficulties of being away from his London home for months at a time, Laurie answered by sharing, of all things, an extended anecdote about a nuclear submarine captain.

Bawdiest Double Winner: Helen Mirren
The Dame's chosen method of begging off questions about how she manages to play monarchs so well? ''Oh, I'm an Essex girl. Do you know what that means? You know how you can tell how an Essex girl has an orgasm? She drops her fries!''

Best & Worst Running Gag: Sacha Baron Cohen
The Borat star continued his humiliation of costar Ken Davitian backstage, but this time he brought the rotund actor onto the podium with him: ''There was a little sign that I was going to show [director] Larry Charles. If I ran out of air when Ken was sitting on my face, I [would] tap on the bed three times. If you look at the movie again, I tap on the bed three times, but Larry was so engrossed with the [scene] that he didn't realize I was dying under Ken's anus.'' Did Cohen have any entreaties for Davitian before shooting the scene? ''He requested that I shower and shower,'' Davitian said, ''and shower and powder down, and then shower again.'' Glad we cleared that up.

Best Real Modesty: Meryl Streep
Told that her acceptance speech lasted a good four minutes, Streep looked momentarily mortified: ''I'm so sorry! I hate people who do that!'' And when a reporter sitting in the last row began his question with the compliment that the radiant Streep looked not a day over 25, the 58-year-old quickly retorted, ''You're so far in the back, though!'' But will she be celebrating her win? ''Yes, I have a 15-year-old with me, and I am going to be watching everything she does. So yeah, we will go to the parties and have some, you know, fun.''

Best Demonstration of Hollywood Pecking Order & Most Surprising Winner: Eddie Murphy
The producers of the HBO miniseries Elizabeth I had barely begun answering questions when they were quickly ushered away to make room for Best Supporting Actor winner Murphy's turn with the press. Murphy, notoriously press-shy, was an unexpectedly game interview. Asked about a moment in Dreamgirls when Murphy, as has-been music star Jimmy ''Thunder'' Early, wordlessly decides to shoot up some heroin after suffering a bitter disappointment, Murphy confessed he had no idea he'd done the scene well until cast and crew members began complimenting him on it. ''If I don't hear the laugh,'' Murphy said, ''I don't know if it works.''

Best Celebrity Look-Alike Moment: Bill Nighy
Joking about playing the father of fellow winner Emily Blunt in Gideon's Daughter, Nighy joked, ''It was only about halfway through shooting she realized that I wasn't the science guy.'' Wait, Nighy knows from Bill Nye? ''Yeah, I disappointed a lot of small children over the years. When my daughter first started school they wanted to meet Bill Nye, the Science Guy — until they actually realized I was the other Bill. I have never actually met him. I don't know if we resemble each other.''

Most Unexpected Pop-Culture Reference: Clint Eastwood
Upon concluding his Q&A with the press, Eastwood was asked like every other winner to pose for a moment for photos with his Golden Globe, a request that apparently struck the septuagenarian director as a bit unreasonable: ''What, am I Paris Hilton or something?''

Most Heartfelt Moment: America Ferrera and the cast of Ugly Betty
The adorably sincere Ferrera held back the waterworks in the press room — that is, until the rest of her Ugly Betty cast-mates swarmed around her on the dais and a reporter asked the star what they all meant to her. ''They mean so much,'' she said, tears streaming down her cheeks once again. ''It is nothing without them, and there's no way possible that I could do this by myself. It is not even conceivable. I love them.'' The cast broke into spontaneous applause for Ferrera, who was then whisked away by a Hollywood Foreign Press official to undoubtedly yet another press event — one more stride into stardom for this year's most promising breakout.

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