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SUBJECT: Screen Actors Guild Awards

Suppose they gave an award ceremony and the nominees actually came?

So with the Writers Guild’s blessing, and with uncommonly threatening skies and reports of pending thunderstorms, waterspouts and even a tornado, the stars of motion pictures and television arrived at the Shrine Auditorium, in Los Angeles, to be honored by their peers for their extraordinary performances.

Onstage/Backstage Remarks
JAMES GANDOLFINI (Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series – The Sopranos):
“This is our last official act as ‘The Sopranos’ together. So, here’s to you guys. It’s been 10 years, it’s an honor.”

EDIE FALCO (Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series – The Sopranos)
“Ten years, I wish for everybody in every walk of life, but particularly for actors, to have an opportunity to have a work experience like I have had with my family here. You’re not supposed to get this attached, because it’s a transient business, but I have fallen in love with these people and I don’t know how you walk away from that. I felt loved and protected and taken care of at all times. Nobody is luckier than me.”

JAVIER BARDEM (Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in Supporting Role – No Country for Old Men):
“My grandparents were actors in a time when actors were not allowed to be buried on sacred land, because they were homosexuals and prostitutes. So it’s been a long way to come here.”

RUBY DEE (Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role – American Gangster):
“I accept [this award] also for my husband Ossie [the late Ossie Davis], because he’s working on things up there. I can’t believe that last year we won a Grammy for our autobiography and spoken word, and now this marvelous award for American Gangster. I’m feeling very, very lucky.”

CHARLES DURNING (Life Achievement Award):
“There’s nothing more gratifying than having an Achievement Award from one’s peers. Over 50 years ago, I had the honor of working with some of the best actors, directors, and writers in our industry. It’s been a dream come true, a dream that began when I watched the movies of the great character actors of my time. Actors like: Claude Rains, Lee J Cobb, Frank Morgan and King Kong [laughter]. And it’s impossible to thank all of the people who so gratefully wanted me to do what they wanted me to do.”

TINA FEY (Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series – 30 Rock):
“I share this with everyone in our ensemble; it takes a lot of people to make me look like a good actor. And specifically, I really want to thank my most frequent scene partner, Alec Baldwin. If you’ve seen me on the show with Alec Baldwin, then you know it’s sort of like watching Fred Astaire dance with a hat rack. After a while, you’re like, ‘Oh, that hat rack is pretty good too.’ So you’ve given an award to the hat rack, and I thank you.”

STEVE CARELL (Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series – The Office) on seeing Ricky Gervais [whose original role he plays in the US version of The Office] at the awards:
“It was very scary, he’s a very intimidating human being, and none of us [on The Office] like him very much, and he doesn’t like us either [everyone laughs], so whenever we’re in these sort of situations there’s a awkwardness, you can cut the tension with a knife. I actually saw Ricky in the men’s room just before the ceremony, and I swear to God he leaned over the urinal and said, ‘I knew it!’ So that is my Ricky Gervais story. I will do Extras now, and whatever he does next I will follow suit.”

DANIEL DAY LEWIS (Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role – There Will Be Blood) on the death of Heath Ledger:
“It’s all I’ve been thinking about for the last few days. I never met him, but he was beautiful, I just have very strong feeling that I would like him very much as a man if I had met him, and I admired him very much and was absolutely certain that he would have done many wonderful things in his life. I think we should let him and his family alone to suffer their unimaginable grief in private, but that’s not going to happen, but we can still keep asking for it. We should just stop encouraging people to have a greater and greater interest in raking over every detail, which is none of our business anyhow, of his life.”

JULIE CHRISTIE (Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role – Away from Her): on mentioning unions in her acceptance speech:
“All unions are important I think. Think of the incredible historical fight to form unions and now have unions. It is an absolutely wonderful thing that we’ve got them after such a struggle to get them, and without them we wouldn’t have anyone to represent our injustices and to fight for them to be turned around. Without a union what do you do? Do you just stand up and say, ‘This is so unfair, I can’t bear it. Do something.’ You have to have a union to do that for you.”

Written by Judy Sloane. Back to top

Images above © 2008 WireImage
Feature © 2008 Visual Imagination Limited.
Not for reproduction.

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