De-activate all underlying buttons

I wonder:

I have a flash site with buttons, animations etc, and I want to click on a button so there is a new movieclip (picture) shown on the stage, on top of everything. Is it possible then to de-activate all buttons/layers that lie underneath that picture, without actually removing them from the stage?
Or do I have to clear all button-events myself in actionscript? And re-activating them when I close the picture-movieclip?

Thanks