Muriel's Pal Returns to Comedy

Leave it to an Australian to tell it like it is. Rachel Griffiths, who was nominated last year for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in Hilary and Jackie, makes no bones about why she skipped this year's ceremony.

"I could have gone but it's kind of like, after you've been at the table who wants to be down with the dogs?" the Muriel's Wedding co-star tells TV Guide Online. "I'll wait till I'm at the table again. I don't want to eat scraps off the damn carpet."

Griffiths is still proud her Oscar gown got people talking. "Someone in Vogue or something said I looked like a large lollipop. I was like, 'Yeah!' Everybody's so straight. At least I went out there in a big pink dress and did the lollipop thing!"

She's just as amusing on-screen in her latest film, Me Myself I, playing a single woman who learns what life would be like if she had married Mr. Right. Griffiths describes it as "Working Girl meets Groundhog Day."

Returning to comedy was a relief for the actress. "After Hilary and Jackie I went back to Australia and did A Doll's House, which made Hilary and Jackie look like There's Something About Mary. I was, like, 'Um, I need to lighten up!' " Mission accomplished.