ON THE OUTSIDE: SOME LUCKY OSCAR HOPEFULS WILL GET A NICE DESSERT.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

With the Academy Awards ceremonies less than two weeks away, Oscar hopefuls gathered at the Beverly Hilton Monday for a casual luncheon.

``Casual'' was the operative word. Fashions were relaxed, and so were the nominees who stopped to talk to reporters about their films before the festivities.

Best actress nominee Juliette Binoche likened the film for which she's nominated, ``Chocolat,'' to something of a fairy tale.

``This film is selling little dreams,'' she said.

And then there was Russell Crowe.

His best actor nod for ``Gladiator'' was overshadowed by recent talk of his kidnapping scare. Only, as it turned out, Crowe wasn't the least bit scared.

He even made light of the possibility of such an attempt, saying, ``They'd be on the phone going, 'Look, we passed the hat around. We got a couple hundred bucks. Now take him off our hands.' ''

Tom Hanks was more forthcoming about his best actor nomination, strangely enough comparing it to the planet Jupiter.

``It's the biggest planet in our solar system,'' said Hanks. ``It never gets smaller. It never gets bigger. It's a constant big ball of gas.

``It's got a big red dot on it that you hope shines on you at the appropriate time just like a camera,'' he said. ``And what I'm saying is, it is never less than the big event of the year.''

It's no wonder Marcia Gay Harden, up for supporting actress for ``Pollock,'' rejoiced, ``I'm on Cloud 9.''

She wasn't alone.

Laura Linney was ecstatic, describing her best actress nod for ``You Can Count on Me'' as ``wildly surreal.''

``I never expected to be standing here when I signed on,'' she said.

Then again, some did, such as Willem Dafoe, who earned a best supporting actor nomination for the film ``Shadow of the Vampire.''

``Part of publicizing the movie became fielding Oscar buzz,'' he said, chuckling. ``Happily fielding Oscar buzz.''

It was the same buzz that prepared previous Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn for her best actress nod for ``Requiem for a Dream.''

``There was so much talk about it before that if it hadn't been nominated I would have been disappointed,'' she said.

This being the sixth nomination of her career, Burstyn described it as ``springtime after a long winter.'' And it's an award that she says she ``totally'' wants to win.

Director Ang Le, who won the Directors Guild Award for ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' on Saturday, was less inclined to discuss the possibility of winning, saying, ``I don't believe in film competition.''

Instead, he was more impressed by the range of people his film has touched and believes that subtitles had a lot to do with it.

``That allows the fantasy story to work,'' he said. ``It's the same as when movies started off in a dark room. It's pure cinema.''

Kate Hudson, whose role as a groupie in ``Almost Famous'' earned her a best supporting actress nod, reflected on her having grown up with an Oscar in the house.

Her mother's trophy wasn't kept behind glass but on the mantel, she said, where its accessibility sometimes created a lot of anxiety. Especially with 500 people in the house, as was the case the night her parents were away and she and her brother threw a raging party.

``At the end of the night, my brother and I were upstairs and he goes, 'Oh my God! The Oscar,' '' she said. ``We went running downstairs, and thank God, it was there.''