Slew of non-white actors honored at SAG Awards
Published: 31 Jan. 2016, 22:11
Queen Latifah accepts the award for outstanding female actor in a TV movie or miniseries for “Bessie” at the 22nd annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall on Saturday in Los Angeles. [AP/NEWSIS]
While the Academy Awards remain enveloped in a crisis over the diversity of its nominees, the 22nd annual SAG Awards on Saturday presented a stark antidote to the rancor that has overwhelmed Hollywood’s awards season. Awards were handed out to Queen Latifah, Uzo Aduba, Viola Davis and Idris Elba (twice), as the actors guild cast a loud vote in favor of diversity on big and small screens.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to diverse TV,’’ said Elba in his third trip on stage as a presenter. His first two were to accept awards for his supporting performance in the Netflix child soldier drama “Beasts of No Nation’’ and for his lead performance in the BBC miniseries “Luther.’’
The night’s top honor, best ensemble in a film, went to the newspaper drama “Spotlight,’’ which came into Saturday badly in need of some momentum. The ensemble award had seemingly come down to “Spotlight’’ or - the film with the wind at its back - Adam McKay’s high finance tale “The Big Short,’’ which last week took the Producers Guild’s top award.
“No way,’’ said Mark Ruffalo, one of the film’s stars.
He praised the writer-director Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer for their purposeful accuracy in penning the journalistic procedural about the Boston Globe’s reporting on sexual abuse by Catholic priests. The two, he said, “took every single opportunity to tell the truth. They didn’t take any cheap way. It was always the truth.’’
Elba made no direct reference to the crisis that has swept through Hollywood in the last two weeks - which might have been far less severe had he been nominated by the Academy Awards, as many expected. But it was on the minds and tongues of seemingly everyone in Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium on Saturday night.
Accepting the most outstanding ensemble award, comedy series, for “Orange Is the New Black,’’ co-star Laura Prepon gestured to the cast of the prison comedy standing behind her.
“Look at this stage,’’ said Prepon at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium. “This is what we talk about when we talk about diversity.’’
Individual actor SAG winners the last three years have exactly corresponded with eventual Oscar winners, which meant that SAG winners Leonardo DiCaprio (“The Revenant’’), Brie Larson (“Room’’) and Alicia Vikander (“The Danish Girl’’) all appear to have cemented their status as favorites. Each won, as expected.
“For any young actors out there, I encourage you to watch the history of cinema,’’ said DiCaprio, who is expected to land his first Oscar after four previous nominations. “As the history of cinema unfolds, you realize that we all stand on the shoulders of giants.’’
But supporting actor will differ this year. The category’s perceived favorite is Sylvester Stallone for the Rocky sequel “Creed.’’ Stallone, though, wasn’t nominated by the screen actors.
Actors make up the largest branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which is why the SAG Awards are a closely watched harbinger of the Oscars. But the Screen Actors Guild is massive by comparison: some 160,000 members to the academy’s 6,000-plus. Voting for the SAG Awards, which concluded Friday, also overlapped with the widespread debate over the industry’s inclusiveness that followed Academy Awards nominations that resurrected the “OscarsSoWhite’’ backlash of last year.
Latifah gave one of the evening’s most stirring speeches while accepting the award for most outstanding female performance in a TV movie or miniseries for HBO’s Bessie Smith tale “Bessie.’’
“I hope that anyone out there who does not come in the package that people say you should, keep fighting for it,’’ said Latifah. “Flip those rocks over. Keep pushing, keep turning, you can do it. You build your own boxes, not people. So knock that thing away and do you!’’AP
AP
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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