HOLLYWOOD -- For months, it was unclear whether the Oscars would go on as usual last weekend. When they finally did, it was still unclear exactly what theme emerged from the 80th annual ceremony.

To the end, this maddening celebration of a critically acclaimed year in filmmaking resisted any themes the outside world wanted to affix on it.

The winners of the Best Motion Picture prize wouldn't talk about its dark themes. The English two-time Best Actor winner wouldn't address the European sweep of the four major acting awards. And the Original Screenplay winner in the sheer, leopard-print dress was more than finished with talk about her former life as a stripper.

Going into the Academy Awards Sunday night, observers thought a slate of wins for front-runner "No Country for Old Men" would expose an American obsession with existential themes in a time of real-world military, political, environmental and economic uncertainty.

Not so, said director, writer and Best Picture Oscar winners Joel and Ethan Coen.

"In terms of sort of parsing the themes, it's not something we really do amongst ourselves or when we are doing interviews either," Joel Cohen said backstage. "We adapted a novel by a great American novelist, Cormac McCarthy, and we are trying to do justice to the novel, but beyond that, we're not really ones to sort of parse the themes of the material."

Ethan Cohen -- continuing the shy, boyish act he displayed on the Kodak Theatre stage at Sunday night's ceremony -- wouldn't even talk about the pressure of being an Oscar favorite. "Oh, boy. You know. Probably [like] Joel as well, I'm trying not to think about it. ... Ugh. Ugh," he said, backing away from the microphone.

(That's from a guy who now has two screenwriting Oscars -- the brothers won their first for "Fargo" in 2003.)

Daniel Day-Lewis, the Best Actor winner for his role in another dark film, "There Will Be Blood," was asked by a British reporter for his thoughts on Europeans sweeping the leading and supporting awards for male and female actors for the first time in 44 years.

"I suppose it's a phenomenon, but I don't know if it kind of serves any purpose to focus on that really," he replied.

Diablo Cody -- back to her sarcastic self backstage after dissolving in tears when she won the screenplay Oscar for the comedy "Juno" -- was asked what she would do if she had a quarter for every time someone asked about her past life as a stripper.

"If I had the money I would probably pay off everybody in the journalism world not to mention it again," she said, laughing.

The foreign domination (Europeans also took home Oscars for art direction, costume design, makeup, original score and original song, among others) was the closest thing the Academy Awards ceremony had to a shocker. In retrospect, though, it shouldn't have been.

Winners Day-Lewis and supporting actor Javier Bardem of Spain ("No Country") were front-runners for their awards, and actresses Julie Christie (England) and Cate Blanchett (Australia) had been favorites in the corresponding actress categories. The main shock was the actresses who won them instead: Marion Cotillard of France and Tilda Swinton of England.

Both actresses -- and for that matter, both actors -- delivered the kind of roles Oscar voters typically love, where they disappeared physically into their characters. The normally striking Swinton became a frumpy corporate lawyer; Cotillard, a hunched-over, alcoholic Edith Piaf; and Bardem the owner of the most terrifying boy bob of all time.

That wasn't even Bardem's most demanding role; that, he said to reporters afterward, was "being just normal, being myself." Actors feel comfortable in a character's skin, he said, because "every actor wants to hide themselves, become somebody else."

As for playing cold-blooded killer Anton Chigurh, Bardem said, "The tricky part of this character was that everything was there to be constructed. There was nothing explained -- neither in the book, neither in the script. So everything that you see, you hear, you feel is because the Coens and I, we put it together."

Cotillard -- still shaking and heaving backstage as she clung to her statuette -- admitted going so deep into the role of Piaf, she had difficulty in drawing a line between herself and the legendary French singer.

"I really dedicated my life to the movie and Edith Piaf for few months. ... When the movie was finished, I realized that I didn't have a life, and I didn't exactly know how to go back," she said.

The very intense (but with reporters, jokey and engaging) Day-Lewis said he didn't want to leave his character, the brutal oilman Daniel Plainview. He admitted feeling so connected to the character that he regularly calls "Blood" director Paul Thomas Anderson to chat, even though they have little but small talk to exchange.

It's not that he needs "to undergo some kind of exorcism" after going through such a role, Day-Lewis said. "It's more you've unleashed a curiosity that's more or less insatiable. And therefore, in that moment, when the job's done, that curiosity doesn't just lie down and leave. ... I know this might seem bizarre to you, but I actually was happy exploring Plainview's life -- therefore, I was reluctant to stop doing it."

One theme that had dominated the awards handed out in the months leading up to the ceremony -- the writers' strike -- was also absent in the end, though now it may be actors striking come June. Maybe that will be a theme of next year's Academy Awards show.

George Clooney, a leading voice on behalf of the Screen Actors Guild, told reporters on the red carpet before the ceremony that there have "been no assurances" whether a strike will happen or not.

But he doesn't have to worry about paychecks like most of his union brethren.

"My job in the union is to protect the middle- and lower-income wage earners -- their wages, their health care, and trying to find a way to solve it," Clooney said.