Jeff Bridges is tipping Colin Firth to succeed him as winner of the best actor award at this year's Oscars.
Bridges took the accolade last year for Crazy Heart with Firth among the disappointed nominees for A Single Man.
Bridges, this year nominated for True Grit, believes the roles will be reversed and that Briton Firth will be celebrating on February 27 when the Academy Awards are handed out.
Bridges, speaking at the annual luncheon for nominees in Beverly Hills, said of Firth's performance in The King's Speech: "He'll probably take home the trophy this year. He gives a wonderful performance."
Firth - starring as the Queen's stammering father, King George VI, who reluctantly took the throne in 1936 after his brother abdicated - joked that he sometimes gets royal treatment since the film came out.
"I do get the odd bow, which I put down to either confusion or facetiousness," Firth said.
Others at the lunch included Firth's co-stars, supporting-acting nominees Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush, and supporting contenders Amy Adams (The Fighter), John Hawkes (Winter's Bone), Jeremy Renner (The Town) and Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom).
Meanwhile, The Social Network star Jesse Eisenberg joked that Academy Awards season feels like the endless bar mitzvahs he went to when he was 13.
The Fighter co-star Melissa Leo said the road to the Oscars was like a non-stop energy drink. Mark Ruffalo, nominated for The Kids Are All Right, admitted he was just happy to get a free meal out of the awards marathon.
In all 151 nominees attended the luncheon.
Best-actor nominee Eisenberg said the Hollywood awards season reminded him of his teenage years.
"I had to go to bar mitzvahs every weekend, and this is like the same feeling," Eisenberg said. "Putting on a suit every weekend to go meet with a lot of Jews."
Leo, considered the favourite to win the supporting-actress Oscar, said she tries to keep up her strength during the awards rush with "water, vitamins. And the excitement of it is pretty much of an energy drink right there".
First-time nominee Ruffalo said he was surprised he earned the Oscar shout given that his role probably was the least showy in the film, whose cast includes Annette Bening and Julianne Moore.
"It's taken me a long time to get here, so I really have been, as a meditation, making myself enjoy the hell out of it every single day," Ruffalo said. "And I love free lunches, man. I came up as a starving, struggling actor, so I'm very grateful for a gift lunch."
Nominees shared a fine meal at the luncheon, whose menu featured appetisers of Indochina-spiced beef with avocado mousse, an entree of Alaskan black cod and a dessert selection that included mini lemon meringue tarts with blueberries and raspberry sorbet in cookie shells.
Talk inevitably touched on what nominees would wear to the Oscars, one of the world's biggest fashion showcases.
Natalie Portman, pregnant with her first child and showing a pronounced baby bump, said picking out an Oscar gown is more challenging with an expanding waistline.
"It's certainly all about leaving space for growth," said Portman, the best-actress front-runner for Black Swan, who lamented that fashion has become such a fixation in awards season.
"It is always surprising also that that's become the conversation instead of the movies now. What are you wearing?"