How do actors behave when they're among their own kind? If you're Julia Roberts, you cry. Named best actress, for her role in Erin Brockovich, at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in L.A. on March 11, Roberts said the honor—bestowed by 98,000 fellow thespians—"is like your mom saying, 'Well done.' I was just overcome."

Those with nothing much to weep about schmoozed and gossiped, savoring "stuff that would curl your hair," confided Tom Hanks, who turned up at the PEOPLE-sponsored after-party outside the Shrine Exposition Center. As if to demonstrate, ER's Michael Michele expressed her intention "to move in on [The Sopranos'] James Gandolfini." And when The West Wing's Bradley Whitford lost sight of his wife, Malcolm in the Middle's Jane Kaczmarek, he let his imagination run wild. "My wife is making out with Jeff Bridges!" he cried. You don't hear that at the Oscars.