Oscar's acting class of 2010 gathers for Newsweek's annual roundtable interview (VIDEO)

For over a decade, Newsweek has gathered selected Oscar nominees for a roundtable interview. This year, the magazine features its most diverse group yet.  Take a moment to watch or read what they have to say about love, marriage, foot fetishes, being famous, 'Avatar' and the craft that has brought them closer to the ultimate accolade.

Gather up six actors in one room and chances are the conversation will prove illuminating and engaging. For Newsweek's 13th annual Oscar roundtable, noted film writers David Ansen and Ramin Satoodeh spoke with several of this year's acting nominees, including Jeff Bridges, Sandra Bullock, Morgan Freeman, Woody Harrelson, Carey Mulligan and Gabourey Sidibe. Perhaps its most diverse panel yet, the magazine has posted the complete transcript online, as well as selected video clips. Among the highlights:

GABOUREY SIDIBE on being an actor: I didn't want to be an actress. I'm a very lazy person, and I thought it looked like a lot of work, and I don't like rejection. But somehow every audtion I've ever gon on, I've gotten the role. So that's weird. My first day on the Precious set, I showed up and I was afraid of all thepeople. How do we know that I really can act? How do we know I can carry this film? It wasn't until I got right in front of the camera that I completely forgot to be afraid. There was a job that I had to do, and I just did it.

SANDRA BULLOCK: And my father was an opera-singer voice teacher. We went back and forth to Europe—my mother would sing in the operas. I think when you’re presented with that kind of dedication to a craft, everything else pales in comparison. It’s scary because if you don’t step up to the plate in the way that they did, you’re not really stepping up to a plate. So that gave me a fear of trying to be better and using that fear to turn over every stone and get close to what they’ve done.

WOODY HARRELSON: I think really what made me want to be an actor is that I got into Elvis after his death. They had these things in TV Guide where you can send two cents and get five records, but then you have to buy them for the rest of your life. I got Elvis’s golden oldies, and I started singing it. Cut to: I’m in the library, and some of my buddies from the football team are saying, “Woody, do your Elvis.” I’m like, it’s just before Christmas, this place is loaded with people. They keep trying to convince me, but I resisted for a while, and that inner performer finally wanted to come up. So I started singing: “Well, I bless my soul/What’s wrong with me.”

JEFF BRIDGES on intimacy off and on screen: I do find that when you’re supposed to be close to someone, then you kind of open your heart. You have two actors going like that next to each other and you start to feel, “Wow, man.” That’s kind of dangerous because you can cross the line and then go off into some stuff that you don’t want to go. But just to have that intimacy, someone knowing you and you knowing someone else—it’s very attainable.

Question: Is that why actors often fall in love with their costars?

BRIDGES: Of course. I’ve been married 33 years. My wife and I have been doing this for a long time. Her support, saying you’re going to go off and do your thing. To support me doing that is such a precious thing...She’s the leading lady of my life! She gets all the intimate stuff, the real thing. You sometimes get tired of pretending—I’m tired of being somebody else.

MORGAN FREEMAN on the perils of fame: I’ve got two great recognition stories. I was between planes in Dallas/Ft. Worth, sitting there with a cap on. This guy leans over and says, “I know you’re trying to be incognito, but I recognize you ... Samuel L. Jackson.” I said I’m not Samuel. He said, “You’re lying, but it’s OK.” And another time, I’m with a friend at the Four Seasons. There was a guy at the bar who kept looking over. He finally sauntered over and said, “I was with a friend of yours about three weeks ago, Alfre Woodard, and I asked her who was the best actor she ever worked with and she named you. [Pause.] Louis Gossett Jr.” I kept a straight face. “Thank you very much.”

MULLIGAN: No. I’m really a forgettable person. I’ve been recognized twice. And that was after doing Doctor Who, which is a big TV series in England. I did one episode, and I had long blond hair. I change my hair five times a year, and I’m kind of malleable, so I don’t look the same.

FREEMAN on 'Avatar': I think it’s a bit faddish. Because it’s really cartoons. If I could look into your eyes and see a completely different person, that’s what I want.

BULLOCK on the Internet: I don’t read things—I don’t read the good, and I don’t read the bad. The minute you go on there, it’s a hateful, hateful place, but it’s all anonymous. If you’re going to talk smack about me, at least give me your name and your e-mail address so I can at least ask you why you hate me so much. You don’t have to be out there all the time. Everyone here retreats back to where their home is, and their battery pack.