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Sean Penn sent his regrets.
Maybe it doesn't sound very glamorous, but the annual Directors Guild Awards nominee breakfast panel is one of the hottest tickets of award season and the nominated directors never miss it - even if they are far, far away.
Roman Polanski participated via live satelite from France when nominated for "The Piano," Peter Jackson joined in from New Zealand when he was stuck there editing one of the "Lord of the Rings" films, and last year, Stephen Frears ("The Queen") took part in the proceedings from London.
So the disappointment was palpable Saturday morning when the capacity crowd inside the DGA theatre in West Hollywood was told that Penn, DGA nominated for "Into the Wild" but passed over by the Academy for a best director nod, would not be participating in the event and was unlikely to attend the gala dinner later than night. The official reason: pre-production on the Gus Van Sant film that casts Penn as slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk.
But there were still five nominated directors on hand since brothers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen were both nominated for directing "No Country for Old Men." They were joined by Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood"), Tony Gilroy ("Michael Calyton") and Julian Schnabel ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly").
You couldn't help but wonder how much different things would have gone had Penn been present though. For one thing, would smoking be allowed? Anderson paused at one point to ask if he would be allowed to have a cigarette. When he was told no, he cracked: "If Sean was here, he'd be smoking and nobody would say anything about it."
Anyway, here are some of the highlights from the event which is always held on the morning of the DGA Awards gala (To see who won the DGA Award, go to DailyNews.com).

SILENCE IS GOLDEN: Anderson was asked why there was no dialogue in the first 15 minutes of blood: "I just couldn't think of anything for them to say."

CATCHING A BREAK: Daniel-Day Lewis cracked a few ribs when filming a scene where he falls down a 50-foot mineshaft. Anderson said he thought it best to just keep the camera rolling on the scene since the actor "just had to moan and wail and act hurt."

ETHAN COEN ON JAVIER BARDEM: "Most of the time, we had conversations that Joel and I didn't know what he was talking about but they seemed to satsify him....He'd be upset because of what he thought we were saying but we didn't know what we were saying."

EXTRA CREDIT: Ethan Coen was surprised at the attitudes some of the extras in "Country" copped when shooting moved from Texas to California: "For three months in Texas, we had great extras...Then for two weeks in LA, all the extras here are so jaded. They're just so horrible and angry."

CLOONEY STAR POWER: Gilroy said having George Clooney as your leading man does have its advantages if there were production problems: "If George would come out of the trailer and take a picture (with a police captain), we could change the traffic power of La Guardia."

POLLACK'S INDECISION: Gilroy was desperate to get director-actor Sidney Pollack for the role of Clooney's boss in "Clayton" but it was no walk in the park: "Sidney kept dropping out on me. There was no one else on my list. I wanted someone with age and authority...who had to dominate George. He was in, he was out, he was in and when he was out, it was a nightmare."

NOT OVER YET: Schnabel, who was the comic relief on the panel, talked about the last frame of "Butterfly" and shared that some people think the movie is already over by then: "When people see my movie and they get up to thank me before that last scene, it pisses me off!"