Tilly ditches Oscar parties for NHPC

One-time Oscar nominee and Academy member Jennifer Tilly skipped this year's Academy Awards ceremony and a slew of celebratory parties in favor of competing in the second annual National Heads-Up Poker Championship (NHPC) at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas this past weekend, it was revealed. The famous actress-turned-poker-player said it was the first time more than a decade she wasn't around for the annual Oscar festivities in Hollywood.

"This is the first time in 15 years I haven't attended the Oscar parties or gotten swept up in Oscar fever," Tilly told The Associated Press. "I haven't even seen 'Brokeback Mountain.' I don't even know who's nominated."

Tilly was knocked out of the NHPC in the first round of the heads-up tournament but confessed she has no regrets.

"In this, I have the prospect of winning half a million dollars," she said. "In movies, I have the prospect of the film going straight to video."

Tilly also told The Associated Press that she is treated better as a poker celebrity than as a Hollywood actress and also pulls in more money.

Tilly was nominated for an Oscar for the 1994 Woody Allen film "Bullets Over Broadway."