The Denzel Washington-directed drama "The Great Debaters" may have been ignored by Oscar voters, but the movie about a college debate team was the big winner at the 39th annual NAACP Image Awards at the Shrine Auditorium on Thursday night. I was backstage when Washington celebrated winning best picture and best actor along with the movie's Jurnee Smollett (best actress) and Denzel Whitaker (supporting actor).

"I'm happy for everybody up here," a beaming Denzel said. "I've been very fortunate to be at a lot of awards but I'm very grateful for this one and happy that some of these young people are being recognized."

Denzel, who had longer hair than usual in the film, was asked about why he was now sporting a completely bald head. He explained that he is about to start shooting a film with Tony Scott and John Travolta and "I'm fiddling around with different looks."

Actor/writer/filmmaker Tyler Perry also a big winner. His TBS series "House of Payne" won three awards including comedy series and Janet Jackson won best supporting actress for Perry's film "Why Did I Get Married?" Backstage, he said it wasn't as difficult as people think for him to juggle his different roles in each production: "It's whatever I'm doing a the time. Acting has its place, writing has its place, producing has its place."
But, Perry admitted, he is a busy man.
"This year has been crazy, it's been very, very overwhelming for me," he said. "There's a lot going on.

Herbie Hancock, fresh off his shock Grammy win for Album of the Year, talked backstage about the experience of that victory on Sunday night: "I think it's very clear that I was truly, like, stunned. But there was amazing joy that I felt. I really wanted to share that feeling with the people there that night. It was a really humbling moment for me and for jazz."

Presenter India.Arie didn't win a Grammy and had mentioned on the air that she had pointedly skipped the show despite being nominated. Backstage, she elaborated a bit: "It was a very quiet boycott but I boycotted it...I was tired of the politics. It hurts to know that you are going to be ignored. Yes, the Grammys, they annoy me... I was at home on the couch eating chocolates and laughing and crying and watching the TV and yelling. It was more authentic for me. I didn't feel I had any reason to be there and I was right. Some things are so predictable that it just makes you mad."

"CSI: NY" star Hill Harper, winner of the best actor in a drama series award, talked more
backstage about campaigning for Barack Obama than about his win: "Barack Obama and I have known each other 20 years, we went to Harvard Law School together. I've been working very hard. It's been a wonderful experience, a wonderful journey. We have a long way to go. He's running against an incredible candidate. I've known for all these years how magnificant and brilliant and caring he is as an individual."

Since special honoree Ruby Dee has been an inspiration to so many, she was asked backstage who had been her inspiration. She shared a story about Emma, the woman who raised her and her three siblings and who she considers her mother: "She turned my life in a whole different course than it might have been having come from teenaged parents...kids who were parents before they should have been. ...She was 13 years older than my father and wanted to raise us all...I had a gift for words and language and expressing myself and she recognized that. Being an educator herself, she was atuned to these kinds of things of in all four of these children. She had become the mother of us.... We have to pay attention to our chidlren, she taught me that. My mother, Emma."