For all the fuss over the Oscars and, increasingly, the Golden Globes, you have to wonder why the Screen Actors Guild gets so little attention.
Like the Globes, it’s a fast moving, awards-only show that salutes work in both TV and the movies. Other than an exceptionally wooden opening in which actors at their square plates on the rectangular tables looked up to tell why whey were actors, one by one, William Shatner to Marg Helgenberger (whose hubby happens to run the operation), it was all presenters and envelope ripping. It even had the familiar announcer in Les Marsak
And like the Globes, a lot of the winners were the same: Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, America Ferrera, Hugh Laurie, Alec Baldwin, Jeremy Irons and Helen Mirren twice once more for her two different queens Elizabeth.
But there were some variations, as well, in an event that awards ensembles of TV shows rather than the show itself (it’s an actors’ show, where the awards are called “actors” as well, as in “the actor goes to..”).
Perhaps proving that awards for TV shows are tied to prevailing popularity, “Grey’s Anatomy” won for ensemble cast over the more deserving “Sopranos” “Deadwood” and “24” (also in the category: “Boston Legal”).
“We love this category more than you know,” said Ellen Pompeo in accepting. Determined to name all those in the cast who couldn’t be with them, she flubbed the one name she could remember and then drew a blank. “Help me out here,” she asked of her ensemble. Oh yeah: Isaiah Washington, apparently still in homophobe rehab.
Chandra Wilson of “Grey’s” was also named best actress in a TV drama, over Edie Falco and a bunch of cops or psychics. Pointing out her own sag, she said, “thank you, Screen Actors Guild, for taking me as I am.”
And in TV comedy ensemble, where “Ugly Betty” would be the bet (since it won at the Globes and is prevailing favorite), it was, instead, “The Office” that won.
That meant Steve Carell was like Dame Helen Mirren – up for two different awards, when his ensemble for “Little Miss Sunshine” also won their equivalent for best picture.
Comments