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tiff 2012

Actor and director Ben Affleck attends a news conference to promote the film 'Argo' during the 37th Toronto International Film Festival, September 8, 2012.Reuters

TIFF: where best friends are reunited or created. Matt Damon and wife Luciana flew in to Toronto on Friday afternoon to support his buddy Ben Affleck at the premiere of Argo. Affleck is receiving widespread acclaim for his third directorial effort with many predicting a trip to the Oscars.

Damon's flight was delayed so he skipped the red carpet and was ushered into Roy Thomson Hall immediately. The Damons joined Affleck and wife Jennifer Garner afterward at Terroni for a private dinner, where Damon was seen beaming proudly at his BFF. Perhaps taking advantage of a free night from their four (!) daughters, he and the Mrs then went onto Soho House where they held court at a booth on the second floor until 2 a.m.

Soho House was also where a bromance appeared to bloom between Bradley Cooper and Andy Samberg on Saturday. The two were huddled together, chatting animatedly, at The Silver Linings Playbook party sponsored by Grey Goose, oblivious to several attractive women who kept circling, hoping for an opportunity to approach.

Later on in the evening, two young blockbuster franchise starlets, Kristen Stewart of Twilight and Jennifer Lawrence of The Hunger Games, took over a corner on the third floor of the members' club. A relaxed Lawrence had her shoes off and held them in her hand, dangling her legs over the arm of her chair. They left at the same time, without Stewart's publicist, and I'd like to imagine that they went back to their hotel, changed into their jammies, ordered up some greasy food, watched videos and shared playlists while dreaming up a screenplay together.

One more detail for the Hunger Games geeks out there – Lawrence gave co-star Woody Harrelson a huge hug when he arrived. The two will soon be working together again on the sequel Catching Fire.

Speaking of greasy food... Emma Watson eats it! You don't often see a female celebrity going for the burger but that was what she was doing as I walked into The Perks of Being A Wallflower party hosted by vitaminwater.

And movie stars can be practical too. Nina Dobrev arrived with her heels on and a pair of flats in her hand. The changeover happened as soon as she sat down. Dobrev is making the most of her visit home to Toronto. She hit up Soho House the night before, where I saw her being greeted by power producer Harvey Weinstein and, a few minutes later, hugging Alexander Skarsgard, prompting this predictable and obvious observation: vampire meets vampire! (That may have been a spoiler for those of you who've not yet caught up on Season 3 of The Vampire Diaries. Sorry.)

And finally... Hugh Grant has a hidden talent: ping-pong. When I asked Grant if he planned on hitting up the Toronto branch of co-star Susan Sarandon's table tennis club SPiN, he told me that he very much wanted to because, "I'm actually quite good." It sounded like he was throwing down a challenge.

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