But as familiar as Spacek is with the drill, her best-actress nod for "In the Bedroom" has been a different experience. She has more perspective at 52 than she had in her younger days.

"I was so nervous when I was nominated for 'Carrie.' I was just 27. But I am older and wiser now, and I know to wear comfortable shoes," Spacek said with a warm laugh.

"Everything gets sweeter with time. I am just enjoying things more and trying to stay right in the moment and just go and have fun."

At the Kodak Theatre next Sunday, "I will see a lot of old friends I have worked with through the years, and that makes it much more sweet."

Julia Roberts, last year's winner, has announced that Spacek is her choice for a successor. "God bless her for doing that. Julia's a very talented girl and very kind."

Spacek hasn't picked her Oscar outfit yet. "You feel a bit like Cinderella's ugly stepsister trying to get your foot in the slipper." But she will have a good luck charm by her side: her husband, art director Jack Fisk, whom she met working on "Badlands" 30 years ago.

"My husband says I forgot to thank him when I won in 1981 for 'Coal Miner's Daughter.' I can't remember anything that night, so I don't know if I did or not. But now every opportunity I have I thank him because he has had to put up with a whole lot."

The two left Hollywood in the mid-'80s and bought 200 acres in Virginia, where they have raised two daughters. Spacek's idea of fun is to stay home and clean out drawers. "I'm a Capricorn, so it's in my nature to be a homebody."

Keeping her down on the farm is going to be hard after the accolades she's received for "In the Bedroom." While Spacek isn't ready to resume the pace she kept before motherhood, she welcomes more work.

"I have always taken great care with scripts. Sometimes you pick winners, sometimes things fall through the cracks. But it's all part of the process. I don't want to ever not do a movie out of fear that it will fail. You have to continue to take risks. That's the thrill of it."

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)