At Golden Globes, Streep reflects on stardom, Downey teases, Hollywood offers help for Haiti

Backstage and on the red carpet at Golden Globes

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Adding a little drama to Sunday’s Golden Globes Awards was Robert Downey Jr.’s friendly backstage disagreement with his wife over whether she thought he was going to win the award for best musical or comedy actor in a motion picture.

“Did you or did you not say Matt Damon was going to win?” Downey prodded his wife, Susan Levin.

“I did not!” she responded. “What I did say is I went online to see what the predictions are going to be.”

During his acceptance speech, Downey had said his wife told him he didn’t stand a chance because Damon’s performance in “The Informant” had locked up the award.

Downey, who won for the title role in “Sherlock Holmes,” says it is much more likely now that he’ll get to play the master detective again — in a sequel.

Some stars, such as Leona Lewis, felt out of place on the Golden Globes red carpet.

The silky singer, whose “I See You” from “Avatar” was nominated for best original song, said it was “totally surreal” to be surrounded by movie stars instead of musicians.

“Inglourious Basterds” co-star and horror director Eli Roth, however, was content on the chaotic, and very wet, red carpet where the rain threatened to wash away stars’ makeup, drench their designer clothes and ruin their hair.

“I make movies where people’s faces melt and their skin rots off, so I feel right at home in this,” said Roth.

While most stars made their way across a rain-soaked red carpet with the help of umbrella-toting publicists, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gabourey Sidibe decided to go it alone, hoisting their own rain gear above their heads.

Several celebrity gentlemen stepped up to defend their leading ladies from the elements. Among them were David Arquette, who sheltered his wife, Courteney Cox, from the rain, while Tom Hanks did the same for his wife, Rita Wilson. Harrison Ford made sure fiance Calista Flockhart stayed dry. Watching out for Diane Kruger was Joshua Jackson.

“I love my dress,” said Kruger. “I hope it doesn’t get ruined by the rain.”

Winning the prize for outstanding actor in a TV movie for HBO’s “Taking Chance” was a good way to start the new year for Kevin Bacon, who — along with actress-wife Kyra Sedgwick — was among the many victims last year of the massive Ponzi scheme run by financier Bernard Madoff.

“It’s a very nice way to kiss 2009 goodbye,” he said smirking backstage.

A reflective Meryl Streep says she had it easier establishing a career than today’s younger stars.

The 60-year-old Streep, who won the dramatic film actress Golden Globe for her role as Julia Child in “Julie & Julia,” noted there was no such thing as a 24-hour news cycle when she was coming up in Hollywood.

“I think, for younger actresses, the scrutiny is very, very hard,” Streep said backstage after winning. “The blogs where people comment on their weight and their appearance, endlessly tearing people down. That always happened, but it sort of happened in apartments and restaurants, and you didn’t hear everybody’s opinion of you.”

Olivia Wilde says that low-cut, shimmering black-and-silver Gucci gown you saw her in at the Golden Globes is going on the auction bloc to raise money for Haitian earthquake victims, and she urged others to do the same with their red-carpet designer duds.

The “House M.D.” actress says she will also be donating the shiny Judith Leiber purse she carried to the Globes to the organization Artists for Peace and Justice, which will put them up for auction. She promised 100 percent of the proceeds will go to help earthquake victims.

Mickey Rourke said he’s already sent a contribution to support Haiti, but he’d like to hang on to his custom-made David August suit for a while.

“I’ll donate my boots,” Rourke said on the red carpet. “Not my suit.”

Numerous stars arrived at the Golden Globes wearing red-yellow-and-blue ribbons pinned to their purses or lapels to show their support for Haitian relief efforts. Among them were Penelope Cruz, Paul McCartney, Ricky Gervais, Jon Hamm, Adrian Grenier and Lisa Edelstein.

George Clooney worked the celebrity crowd for more volunteers for the Hope for Haiti fundraising telethon he’s co-hosting next week.

“This is the perfect place for me to go and recruit some people,” the 48-year-old actor said.

Clooney told The Associated Press the benefit will include performances by Bono, Sting, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and Alicia Keys.

Director James Cameron, whose box-office blockbuster “Avatar” took home the Golden Globe for best motion picture drama, says he plans to spin off some of those millions of dollars the movie is making to help victims of the Haitian earthquake.

“Well, look, here’s what happened when the big tsunami hit in Indonesia,” Cameron said. “I challenged 20th Century Fox to step up and match me with some money, and it turned out to be a significant amount of money that went down there. And I’m going to have that same conversation with them.”

But first he says he wants to “study the problem a little bit” to make sure the money gets into the hands of people who make sure it is used to help victms and not for something else.

“You’ve got to do these things carefully,” he said.

Associated Press writer Mike Cidoni contributed to this story.