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Screen Actors Guild Awards
Weisz won for her role as a rabble-rousing humanitarian-aid worker, while Giamatti was honored as the manager of Depression-era fighter Jim Braddock. Both had gracious thanks for their fellow actors. "I can't imagine a greater honor than being acknowledged by my peers," Giamatti said. "Being an actor is a hell of a thing. It's a hell of a thing. It's up and down. It's great, but I found the best thing about it is hanging around the craft-service table with other actors and crew people, eating doughnuts." "It's so special to be honored by fellow actors, so thanks very much to the tribe," said Weisz, who also won the Golden Globe supporting-actress prize. Among those Weisz beat out was Michelle Williams of the cowboy romance "Brokeback Mountain," which is favored for a big night at the Oscars and was the odds-on front-runner for Sunday's best cast performance prize, the guild's equivalent of a best-picture award. The other nominees for cast performance were the film biographies "Capote" and "Good Night, and Good Luck," the ensemble drama "Crash" and the rap music tale "Hustle & Flow." "Brokeback Mountain" led the guild's film contenders with four nominations. Along with Williams, Heath Ledger was nominated for lead actor and Jake Gyllenhaal was in the running for supporting actor, the two playing cowboys in love. Ledger and Gyllenhaal faced strong competition. Philip Seymour Hoffman as author Truman Capote in "Capote" beat Ledger for the dramatic-actor prize at the Golden Globes and was considered a favorite for both the guild honor and the best actor Academy Award. Gyllenhaal faced supporting-actor Globe winner George Clooney for the oil-industry saga "Syriana." Felicity Huffman, the best-actress Oscar front-runner for her gender-bending role in "Transamerica," won the guild prize for best actress in a TV comedy for "Desperate Housewives," which also won for best comedy ensemble. Huffman was up for best film actress for "Transamerica" later in the evening. "I love actors. I married one. OK, I married a fantastic one," Huffman said, of her husband, William H. Macy. "But even more than acting, I love the community of actors. I love the green room. I love the hair and makeup trailer. ... I'm so happy I can make a living at it, because I was never very good at math." The best-actress honor for a television drama series went to Sandra Oh for the medical drama "Grey's Anatomy." Oh said she was gratified at how the casting of the show reflected real-world diversity. "This is unbelievable. I thank every single actor out there. I'm so grateful for having a job," Oh said. "To all my fellow Asian-American actors out there, I share this with you, and be encouraged and keep shining." Kiefer Sutherland won as best actor in a TV drama for the action series "24," while the airplane-disaster show "Lost" won for TV dramatic ensemble. "A friend of mine always says if you don't have something nice to say about someone, say it," said "Lost" co-star Terry O'Neil, surrounded by fellow cast members. "This is the saddest collection of climbing, grasping, paranoid, back-stabbing, screen-grabbing schmoozers and losers that you ever saw in your life. But we love each very much." "Brokeback Mountain" led the Jan. 16 Golden Globes with four wins, among them best dramatic film and director for Ang Lee, who took the same prize Saturday from the Directors Guild of America. Adapted from Annie Proulx's short story about old sheepherding buddies who conceal a homosexual affair from their families, "Brokeback Mountain" also has earned top honors from key critics groups and the Producers Guild of America. The film is positioned to become the first explicitly gay-themed movie to win best picture when the Oscars are awarded March 5. Sean Hayes, who won for best actor in a TV comedy for his role as a gay man in "Will & Grace," had a ready wisecrack about "Brokeback Mountain." "First of all, I would like to thank Ang Lee for taking a chance on me," said Hayes, who is not in "Brokeback Mountain." The SAG awards have a solid record of forecasting Oscar winners. All four guild acting recipients for 2004 _ Jamie Foxx for "Ray," Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman for "Million Dollar Baby" and Cate Blanchett for "The Aviator" _ went on to win Oscars. The 12th annual SAG awards also honored former child star Shirley Temple Black for life achievement. ALSO:
De Ravin beat another Australian actor, Rachel Griffiths, who had also been nominated with the cast of Six Feet Under in the best TV drama ensemble category. It was the first nomination and win for Lost, a castaway thriller that has helped reinvigorate US ABC's prime-time schedule. Another Australian actor, Portia De Rossi, had been nominated for an ensemble award as a cast member of TV comedy series Arrested Development. But the TV comedy ensemble award went to the catty ladies of Desperate Housewives. Paul Giamatti won the best supporting actor award for his role as manager Joe Gould in the boxing film Cinderella Man, about the life of Depression-era boxer James J. Braddock. All Aussie eyes are on Heath Ledger in the lead-up to the Oscars. on March 5. Besides the ensemble award for the Brokeback Mountain cast, Ledger is up for best actor, and his co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal for best supporting actor and Michelle Williams, his partner, for best supporting actress. But in early results Rachel Weisz won best supporting actress for The Constant Gardener, on an night that could see Brokeback Mountain win another top award on the road to the Oscars. Weisz won for her role as the doomed activist wife of a British diplomat in The Constant Gardener, a film based on a thriller by John Le Carre. Sandra Oh was named best actress in a television drama for Grey's Anatomy on US ABC, and Kiefer Sutherland was named best actor in a dramatic series for his work as a US agent out to foil terrorist plots in 24 on Fox. Breathless and in tears, Oh, who also won a Golden Globe for her role, thanked her fellow Asian American actors. She said, "I share this with you and be encouraged and keep shining." Brokeback has won major craft guild awards from Hollywood producers and directors, and a victory in Los Angeles for best ensemble cast - the top award given by actors - could make it virtually unbeatable at the Academy Awards. Directed by Taiwan-born Ang Lee, the film has won critical awards and picked up four Golden Globes. It comes into SAG, whose actor members constitute the largest voting group for the Oscars, with four nominations. But not everyone is comfortable with the film whose theme is a forbidden romance between two cowboys. President George Bush ducked a question last week on whether he planned to see the film, and no movie whose theme is a gay romance has won a best-picture Oscar, the symbol of mainstream movie-making success. In a Hollywood awards show tradition, actors ambled up the red carpet, often steered by publicists, stopping to pose for the battery of assembled photographers and to answer questions from the celebrity press. Gyllenhaal offered an apologetic wave to fans, as he was led into the auditorium to prepare to present one of the awards. Up against Brokeback in the ensemble cast category are Capote, about the moral crisis Truman Capote faced in writing In Cold Blood, Crash, a racial drama set in Los Angeles, Hustle and Flow, about a pimp's dream of stardom, and Good Night, and Good Luck, about Edward R. Murrow's fight against Senator Joe McCarthy. Ledger competes against Russell Crowe for Cinderella Man, David Strathairn for Good Night, and Good Luck, Joaquin Phoenix for Walk the Line and Oscar favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote. Competing in the best actress category are Felicity Huffman for Transamerica, Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line, Judi Dench for Mrs Henderson Presents, Charlize Theron for North Country and Ziyi Zhang for Memoirs of a Geisha. Huffman is also nominated in the television comedy actress category for her role as Lynette Scavo on Desperate Housewives. But not everyone is comfortable with the film whose theme is a forbidden romance between two cowboys. President George Bush ducked a question last week on whether he planned to see the film, and no movie whose theme is a gay romance has won a best-picture Oscar, the symbol of mainstream movie-making success. In a Hollywood awards show tradition, actors ambled up the red carpet, often steered by publicists, stopping to pose for the battery of assembled photographers and to answer questions from the celebrity press. Gyllenhaal offered an apologetic wave to fans, as he was led into the auditorium to prepare to present one of the awards. Up against Brokeback in the ensemble cast category are Capote, about the moral crisis Truman Capote faced in writing In Cold Blood, Crash, a racial drama set in Los Angeles, Hustle and Flow, about a pimp's dream of stardom, and Good Night, and Good Luck, about Edward R. Murrow's fight against Senator Joe McCarthy. Ledger competes against Russell Crowe for Cinderella Man, David Strathairn for Good Night, and Good Luck, Joaquin Phoenix for Walk the Line and Oscar favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote. Competing in the best actress category are Felicity Huffman for Transamerica, Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line, Judi Dench for Mrs Henderson Presents, Charlize Theron for North Country and Ziyi Zhang for Memoirs of a Geisha. Huffman is also nominated in the television comedy actress category for her role as Lynette Scavo on Desperate Housewives.
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