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The Hollywood Reporter recently held their annual Writer Roundtable, and they invited some of the hottest names in screenwriting:

When The Hollywood Reporter invited George Clooney and Grant Heslov to participate in this year’s Writer Roundtable, their Nazi art-heist drama The Monuments Men was considered likely to contend in multiple awards categories. Alas, four days after the Oct. 18 discussion at The Los Angeles Athletic Club, Monuments Men was bumped by distributor Sony Pictures to Feb. 7 — unfinished visual effects were cited as the reason — and out of the awards race (at least for this year).

Luckily, Clooney, 52, and Heslov, 50, are such good talkers,THR readers likely won’t care that their movie isn’t in contention yet. The duo joined Clooney’s Gravity writer Jonas Cuaron, 31 (he penned the action-heavy script with his director father, Alfonso), Before Midnight co-writer Julie Delpy, 43, Enough Said writer-director Nicole Holofcener, 53, 12 Years a Slave‘s John Ridley, 49, and Lee Daniels’ The Butler‘s Danny Strong, 39, for a conversation that veered from Paddy Chayefsky to Sarah Palin and Edward Snowden. Said Clooney, “Now we’re getting in some deep shit!”