My afternoon at the BAFTA/LA Awards Season Tea Party chatting up Kathy Griffin, Melissa Leo, Guy Pearce and more!

This year’s event, held at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, was quite the star-studded soiree on Saturday scheduled nicely in between Friday’s Critics Choice Awards and today’s Golden Globe Awards.

I worked the red carpet and chatted with Kathy Griffin, American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe, Melissa Leo, Guy Pearce, Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance , Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich, 127 Hours screenwriter Simon Beaufoy,  songwriter Diane Warren, Kate Flannery of The Office, Michael Lombardi of Rescue Me and two of my all-time favorite actresses: Jacqueline Bisset and Brenda Vacarro.

Miss Leo is a past Oscar nominee for Frozen River a few years back. She was in a particularly good mood on Saturday because the night before she won the Critics Choice Award for best supporting actress for her role in The Fighter.

“I’m fine with a slow, progressive change and I learned last night I do okay with a thrilling, exciting in the moment change,” she said.

[I’ll have the rest of my interview with Melissa, up for a Golden Globe Award tonight, in the coming days]

As you  may know, Kathy Griffin – who recently announced that her Bravo show My Life on the D-List is coming to an end – won the 2010 Greggy for Straight Ally of the Year for her advocacy work on behalf of LGBT equality.

I asked the two-time Emmy winner if she was aware of this particular kudo.

She was.

“Oh, that was so great,” Kathy said.

She said now that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been repealed, it’s time to focus on marriage equality: “We’ve got a lot of work to do, we’ve got to keep up the fight.”

Kathy, who usually does the red carpet for all it’s worth, whizzed by the red carpet so it was great to just get a few words with her. She seemed eager to get inside the party which seems to grow in popularity each year.

“There’s nobody here who loses out so we can all relax today,” said Nigel Lythgoe (pictured, left) the producer of American Idol who is chairman of BAFTA/LA.

Kate Flannery told me. “The Brits have a great time. Genetically I’m Irish so I guess that’s British adjacent.”

She is still having a great time on The Office and doesn’t see the departure of Steve Carrell before the end of the current season as the end.

“I feel like we are kind of preparing for this great new chapter, I feel like the future is very bright. There’s so many strong actors on our show and such great writers. I feel like the fans can feel confident about the future.

Guy, of course, played the Prince of Wales who was briefly the King of England but gave up the throne to marry two-time American divorcee Wallis Simpson. I remarked how that famous romance was portrayed in a far less flattering light in The King’s Speech than in other films.

Said Guy: “That’s right. From an American point of view he’s a real romantic and a heroic figure because he gave up everything supposedly to marry an American woman. In reality, the English people weren’t happy with him at all and really he never wanted to be king. He was in love with this woman and there was no way that that was going to work but I think he was perhaps plotting ways to get out of the job at hand from even a much earlier stage of his life.”

Pearce, so brilliant in Memento, LA Confidential and the great Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, also co-stars opposite Kate Winslet in the upcoming HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce: “Kate is someone I’ve been a fan of for years and she’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant. [Director] Todd Haynes is someone I’ve admired for years so it was delightful.”

As Guy began to walk away, the TV reporter to my left remarked, “It’s a long road from Priscilla Queen of the Desert.” Without missing a beat, Pearce said: “It is a long road in bloody high heels!”

Other stars I also spotted either on the red carpet or inside the party: Jeff Bridges, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Affleck, Nicole Kidman, Andrew Garfield, Jeremy Renner, Jane Lynch, Aaron Eckhart, Vanessa Williams, Eric Stonestreet, Fred Willard, Tim Daly, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and sisters Phylicia Rashad and Debbie Allen.