“It’s an honor just to be nominated. …”

It’s the line we hear at almost every Academy Award ceremony. It’s as much part of the Oscars as the red carpet fashion watch and the thank-you speeches that drone on and on.

A performer is nominated for an Oscar, but loses to someone else. The camera pans to the ecstatic winner rushing to the stage, but what happens to the Oscar nominees who are left gamely smiling in their seats?

Does it help or hurt them to fall just short of winning Hollywood’s most prestigious award?

It depends who you ask.

“I can’t see any downside to it,” says actress Marsha Mason, a four-time Oscar nominee who was nominated for “The Goodbye Girl,” “Only When I Laugh,” “Chapter Two” and “Cinderella Liberty,” but never won.

“People who would not have paid attention to me started to pay attention,” Mason says of her post-Oscar-nominee life. “When I went to meet Clint Eastwood for [the film] ‘Heartbreak Ridge’, the first thing he mentioned to me was, ‘Wow, that’s terrific, you have four Academy nominations.’ ”

The Oscar nominee whose career went into overdrive

Mason’s experience isn’t universal. Plenty of actors and actresses seemed to have melted into the background scenery after their Oscar nominations.

Yet there are other performers whose careers seemed to shift into overdrive once they were nominated. The late Paul Newman was nominated for best actor in the Academy Awards on seven occasions beginning in 1969 for roles in films such as “The Hustler,” “Hud” and “Cool Hand Luke.”

Though he didn’t win, Newman continued to be one of Hollywood’s leading men. He eventually won a best actor Oscar in 1987 for “The Color of Money.”

The actor Mickey Rourke was nominated last year for a best actor Oscar for his role in “The Wrestler.” He didn’t win but earned widespread critical praise.

He also landed a coveted role as the villain “Whiplash” in “Iron Man 2,” says Gregg Kilday, film editor at The Hollywood Reporter.

“Rourke reconnected with a lot of folks, and in an industry built on relationships, that doesn’t hurt,” Kilday says. “Certainly Mickey Rourke is getting more money for ‘Iron Man 2′ than he did for ‘The Wrestler.’ ”

The young actress Saoirse Ronan was nominated for best supporting actress in the 2007 film “Atonement.” Ronan didn’t win, but it didn’t hurt her career, Kilday says.

“She went on to be cast in ‘The Lovely Bones,’ ” Kilday says. “Would that have happened anyway? Possibly.”

An Oscar nomination doesn’t just help individual performers. It can also help get a film made, Kilday says. Producers can tell would-be investors the filmmakers have landed an Oscar nominee when they’re trying to line up support.

“It gives them a little bit more of a name. That’s helpful to producers that have to go out and raise money,” Kilday says.

An Oscar nomination can also help a film, says Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst with Hollywood.com.

He says the gross of the 1999 film, “American Beauty,” grew by more than $55 million (to a total of $130 million) after it was nominated for and won several Oscars. The film won five Oscars, including best picture, best actor and best director.

“It’s no secret that Academy Award nominees enjoy a bump just after the nominations are announced, and just after the awards show as film fans rush to see the movies,” Dergarabedian says.

How to build on an Oscar nomination

A performer can build on an Oscar nomination by making smart choices, says Christopher Sharrett, a professor of communication and film studies at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

On Oscar nomination, by itself, has limited usefulness, Sharrett says.

“It can raise a person’s public profile for a spell, but if they don’t follow it up with something really credible, it’s like a dime-a-dozen — people get nominated all the time,” Sharrett says.

The actor Tommy Lee Jones is a classic example of how to follow up an Oscar nomination, Sharrett says. Jones was nominated for best actor in the 1992 Oliver Stone film, “JFK.” He used that nomination in part to pick up good roles and become a viable box-office personality, Sharrett says.

Jones won best supporting actor for his role in the 1994 film, “The Fugitive.” But he had already parlayed his Oscar nomination into a string of popular films, Sharrett says.

“He [Jones] is now a durable actor,” Sharrett says. “He has an appealing personality and he’s used his craggy, weathered good looks to establish himself as a star.”

Mason, the four-time Oscar nominee, was able to do the same.

She says her Oscar nominations gave her credibility with casting agents and directors. At times, after an Oscar nomination, Mason says she couldn’t take roles she wanted because she was so busy.

Today, she is still known for her Oscar-nominated roles in films like 1977’s “The Goodbye Girl,” she says. Mason says that people still come up to her and congratulate her for winning the Oscar.

Does she correct them? Mason laughed.

“Sometimes,” she says. “I just say, ‘Well, thank you.’ ”

Mason says it was easier to accept losing an Oscar bid years ago in Hollywood because the competition wasn’t as fierce. Now, winning an Oscar is more tied into the marketing of a movie.

Mason says her disappointment was lessened by the realization that winning an Oscar is like “a crap shoot.”

“I don’t think a nomination will ever hurt you,” she says. “It’s your own peer group that voted for you. That’s really a big honor in terms of your career.”

Mason is still acting. She’s working on a solo performance piece and she has founded a line of organic farm and natural products called “Resting in the River.”

“My life is pretty busy,” she says. “I’m having a good time.”

Mason suggested that the best acting job Oscar nominees put on sometimes takes place during the Oscar ceremonies, not in their films.

When asked if she and others really mean it when they say it was just an honor to be nominated, she paused before saying:

“Well, we are actors.”

Despite its moniker, reality television has rarely been intended to give you the real story. It deals in characters (sometimes caricatures) and is usually edited to prove a point.

In the case of Kelly Cutrone, however, what you see is what you get.

Never one for duplicity, the founder of New York-based public relations firm People’s Revolution has an acerbic persona that never wavers whether she’s in “The Hills” of Los Angeles, “The City” of New York or on the set of her new television show, “Kell on Earth.”

“The thing about the show is that there’s three tiers. The first is hello, shallow fashion world, we’re killing ourselves over a skirt,” Cutrone said. “The second is that there’s this group of very eclectic people who get together and sit at this table for 12 to 14 hours a day; we’re like a quilting circle.”

And then, Cutrone added, there’s the third layer, the layer where viewers get to see “a group of women who aren’t sitting around talking about boys all day, who are making a lot of dough and figuring out how to make things happen.”

How often do you even get to see that, Cutrone wonders? “Even in ‘Sex and the City,’ Carrie Bradshaw is obsessed with Mr. Big and Samantha had to get banged 20 times a week to get her character on the show,” she said in her straight-shooting fashion.

That kind of brash honesty is also present in Cutrone’s part-memoir, part-career manual, “If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You” (Harper One). Cutrone doesn’t dish on her reality show co-stars, but she does keep it real about why everything gets better after age 30. Two of the highlights from her list: You’re finally making real money and the sex improves tenfold.

(The book title is Cutrone’s office rule No. 1: If you can’t hold back the tears, head for the exit.)

Between the book and the series on Bravo, airing Monday nights at 10 p.m., Cutrone fans and foes alike will certainly get to see a more well-rounded side of the boss — who’s also a single mother of one, deeply spiritual and fancies herself to be quite the matchmaker for her assistants.

The 40-something PR “power girl” talked with CNN about what it takes to make it in the fashion industry, how her book is kind of like the ’70s horror bestseller “Flowers in the Attic” and why she thinks no woman should be interested in being nice.

Taliban claim responsibility for attack on convoy close to a girls’ school

SHAHI KOTO, Pakistan - Three U.S. soldiers traveling with Pakistan security force members were killed Wednesday and one wounded in a roadside bombing in northwest Pakistan that also injured dozens of schoolgirls, officials said.

The soldiers were in the region as part of a small, little-publicized U.S. mission to train members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps to better fight al-Qaida and Taliban militants, Pakistan’s army said.

U.S. military officials told NBC News that the three were Special Operations forces who were on a mission to train Pakistani forces. They said two other soldiers were wounded in the attack

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. In an phone interview with Reuters, spokesman Azam Tariq also threatened more attacks. “We will continue such attacks on Americans,” he said.

The attack, which killed at least four other people and wounded 70, draws attention to the presence of U.S. troops on Pakistan soil at a time when anti-American sentiment over perceived violations of sovereignty is running high. U.S. and Pakistani authorities rarely talk about the training program out of fear it could generate a backlash.

Near a girls’ school
The blast hit a convoy close to a girls’ school celebrating its opening in the Shahi Koto area of Lower Dir district, which like much of the northwest is home to al-Qaida and Taliban militants. It was unclear where the convoy was heading.

One of the dead was a Pakistani soldier, officials said. Around 70 people were wounded, among them many schoolgirls, said an army statement and police chief Mumtaz Zarin Khan. Some officials said three schoolchildren also were among the dead.

Lower Dir shares a border with Afghanistan and with the Swat Valley, a region the army last year retook from militant control in an offensive that included operations in Lower Dir. The army had claimed both regions were now clear of insurgents.

The bomb flattened much of the Koto Girls High School, leaving books, bags and pens strewn around.

“What was the fault of these innocent students?” said Mohammed Dawood, a resident who helped police dig the injured from the rubble.

Later, the bodies of the American victims along with the two wounded were flown by helicopter to Islamabad and then taken to the city’s Al-Shifa hospital, said a doctor there who asked his name not be used citing the sensitivity of the case. One of the injured had minor head wounds and the other had multiple fractures.

He said Pakistani army and intelligence officers were present and not allowing visitors into the building.

U.S. troops have been training Pakistan’s Frontier Corps since at least 2008. The corps is a major force in the northwest, but they have long been under-equipped and under-trained, making them a feeble front line against militants.

The training program was never officially announced, a sign of the sensitivity for the Pakistan’s government in allowing U.S. troops on its territory. Frontier Corps officials have said the course includes classroom and field sessions. U.S. officials have said the program is a “train-the-trainer” program, and that the Americans are not carrying out operations.

Stevie Wonder is in talks with Glastonbury Festival for him to headline on Sunday night.

Festival organiser Michael Eavis said Muse may headline on Saturday. The rock band last headlined the event in 2004.

So far U2 are confirmed to headline the Pyramid Stage on the Friday night of the festival, which this year celebrates its 40th anniversary.

The festival will announce the full line-up shortly before the festival takes place between 25-27 June.

Mr Eavis made the comments during a Q&A session at an event production show in London.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has pleaded not guilty at the start of his long-delayed sodomy trial.

Prosecutors say he sodomised a male aide, and they claim that traces of Mr Anwar’s DNA were found in medical tests on the man making the allegations.

Mr Anwar has consistently denied the charges, calling them a conspiracy aimed at breaking his increasingly strong political movement.

Homosexual acts are illegal in Malaysia and he faces up to 20 years in prison.

This is not the first time the charismatic opposition leader - who was once the deputy prime minister until his sudden sacking in 1998 - has faced a sodomy claim.

He served six years after an earlier conviction, which was subsequently overturned on appeal. After his release he led the opposition to election gains in 2008.

Mr Anwar represents a major challenge to Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose coalition has held power for more than 50 years.

‘Malicious and frivolous’

Mr Anwar’s much anticipated trial has already been delayed many times, and could easily have been put back yet again.

His lawyers tried a last-ditch effort to ask for advanced access to medical evidence, DNA and CCTV tapes, which they say are key in providing a proper defence.

But a judge decided there was no reason to delay proceedings any further, and Mr Anwar finally faced his 24-year old male accuser, Saiful Bukhari Azlan, in the High Court.

Mr Saiful said Mr Anwar had demanded sex in a Kuala Lumpur apartment.

“I was angry and afraid,” Mr Saiful told the court, according to Reuters news agency. “I rejected his offer. I said I didn’t want to do it.”

The prosecution say that Mr Anwar’s semen was found in medical tests on Mr Saiful, and say they plan to bring evidence of this to the trial.

But Mr Anwar maintains his innocence, and has called the sodomy allegation “malicious” and “frivolous”.

“It is trumped up by political masters using the prosecution for that purpose,” Mr Anwar told the High Court.

He believes he is only on trial for political reasons, and in an interview with the BBC before the trial, he referred to the claims against him as a “nasty conspiracy”.

“We are committed to democratic ideals and some of us may have to pay the price,” he said.

Rights groups have also criticised the trial. Amnesty International accused the government of using “the same old dirty tricks in an attempt to remove the opposition leader from politics”.

There were huge protests after Mr Anwar’s first conviction for sodomy a decade ago. He was freed on appeal in 2004.