The backstage farce “Birdman” topped the 21st annual Screen Actors Guild Award, winning best ensemble cast, even though its star, Michael Keaton, was upset by Eddie Redmayne in the most outstanding actor category.
Keaton led the “Birdman” cast, including Emma Stone, Edward Norton and Zach Galifianakis, in accepting the top honor from the acting guild, calling the profession “the ultimate team sport.”
“Every time I turned around, I ran into another tremendous actor,” said Keaton.
Oscar favorites Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette and J.K. Simmons cemented their front-runner status in a ceremony that often serves as a kind of preview to the Academy Awards. But Redmayne’s win for his performance as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything” was a slight surprise, especially since Keaton’s performance as an egotistical, paranoid Hollywood has-been trying to mount a comeback on Broadway is in many ways an ode to acting.
Redmayne dedicated his SAG award — “this very wonderful skinny man,” he said looking down at his blue statuette — to sufferers and victims of ALS.
Moore, widely considered the best-actress favorite, won most outstanding supporting actress for “Still Alice,” in which she plays an academic with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Accepting the award, she recalled an early lesson on the soap opera “As the World Turns,” in which she played twin sisters, good and evil.
“Then I realized it was super boring to act by myself,” said Moore.
Accepting the award for most outstanding supporting actor for his performance as a domineering jazz teacher in “Whiplash,” Simmons thanked all 49 actors who appear in the drama.
“All of us actors are supporting actors,” said Simmons, a veteran character actor. “Each of us is essential, completely crucial to the story because if there’s one false moment, the train comes off the rails.”
“Boyhood” star Patricia Arquette added the latest in a string of awards Sunday, taking the supporting actress honor for her performance, filmed over the course of 12 years.
“I can’t tell you what this means to me,” said Arquette. “I’m a fourth-generation actor. My family has been committed to acting for over a century, through feast or famine.”
Because actors make up the largest portion of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the SAG Awards are also considered one of the most telling Oscar previews. Individually acting winners usually mirror each other exactly, or very nearly. Last year, the top four winners — Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Lupita Nyong’o, Jared Leto — all went on to win Academy Awards after first scooping up SAG awards.
The predictive powers of the SAGs have been more checkered in matching its top award with eventual best-picture Oscar winners. In the last six years, SAG best-ensemble and Academy Award best-picture winners have lined up three times (“Argo,” ‘’The King’s Speech” and “Slumdog Millionaire”), while diverging just as often. Last year, the actors chose “American Hustle” over eventual Oscar winner “12 Years a Slave”; in 2011, they picked “The Help” over “The Artist”; and in 2009, “Inglourious Basterds” defeated “The Hurt Locker.”
Sunday’s show kicked things off with a pair of wins for the Netflix prison series “Orange Is the New Black,” honoring it as best ensemble in a comedy and naming Uza Abuda most outstanding actress in a comedy series. Abuda won over a number of veteran stars, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Veep”) and Edie Falco (“Nurse Jackie”).
Best ensemble cast in a drama series went to “Downton Abbey,” the second time the series has won the category.
On Saturday night, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Birdman” took the top award from the Producers Guild Awards, suggesting it may be formidable competition to the perceived front-runner, Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood.” The last seven PGA winners have also won best picture at the Academy Awards.
Two actors who usually reside on the big screen won the SAG awards for performances in a miniseries or TV movie: Mark Ruffalo (for HBO’s “A Normal Heart”) and Frances McDormand (for HBO’s “Olive Kitteredge”). Kevin Spacey (“House of Cards”), William H. Macy (“Shameless”) and Viola Davis (“How to Get Away With Murder”) also collected awards.
Davis thanked the producers of the legal dram “for thinking that a sexualized, messy, mysterious woman could be a 49-year-old, dark-skinned African American woman who looks me.”
Debbie Reynolds, the “Singin’ in the Rain” star, was honored with the SAG lifetime achievement award, which her daughter, Carrie Fisher, presented. The 82-year-old Reynolds embarrassed Fischer with a story, recalling that her bun in the famous musical led her to warn her daughter ahead of playing Princess Leia in “Star Wars.”
“I said, ‘Well, Carrie, be careful of any weird hairdos,’” said Reynolds. “So luckily George gave her two buns.”
She also remembered 1964’s “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
“In that movie I got to sing a wonderful song ‘I Ain’t Down Yet,’” said Reynolds. “Well, I ain’t.”
21st ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS RECIPIENTS
THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
EDDIE REDMAYNE / Stephen Hawking – “THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING” (Focus Features)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
JULIANNE MOORE / Alice Howland – “STILL ALICE” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
J.K. SIMMONS / Fletcher – “WHIPLASH” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
PATRICIA ARQUETTE / Olivia – “BOYHOOD” (IFC Films)
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
BIRDMAN (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
ZACH GALIFIANAKIS / Jake
MICHAEL KEATON / Riggan
EDWARD NORTON / Mike
ANDREA RISEBOROUGH / Laura
AMY RYAN / Sylvia
EMMA STONE / Sam
NAOMI WATTS / Lesley
TELEVISION PROGRAMS
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
MARK RUFFALO / Ned Weeks – “THE NORMAL HEART” (HBO)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
FRANCES McDORMAND / Olive Kitteridge – “OLIVE KITTERIDGE” (HBO)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
KEVIN SPACEY / Francis Underwood – “HOUSE OF CARDS” (Netflix)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
VIOLA DAVIS / Annalise Keating – “HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER” (ABC)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
WILLIAM H. MACY / Frank Gallagher – “SHAMELESS” (Showtime)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
UZO ADUBA / Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren – “ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK” (Netflix)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
DOWNTON ABBEY (PBS)
HUGH BONNEVILLE / Robert, Earl of Grantham
LAURA CARMICHAEL / Lady Edith Crawley
JIM CARTER / Mr. Carson
BRENDAN COYLE / Mr. Bates
MICHELLE DOCKERY / Lady Mary Crawley
KEVIN DOYLE / Mr. Molesley
JOANNE FROGGATT / Anna Bates
LILY JAMES / Lady Rose
ROBERT JAMES-COLLIER / Thomas Barrow
ALLEN LEECH / Tom Branson
PHYLLIS LOGAN / Mrs. Hughes
ELIZABETH McGOVERN / Cora, Countess of Grantham
SOPHIE McSHERA / Daisy
MATT MILNE / Alfred
LESLEY NICOL / Mrs. Patmore
DAVID ROBB / Dr. Clarkson
MAGGIE SMITH / Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham
ED SPELEERS / Jimmy Kent
CARA THEOBOLD / Ivy
PENELOPE WILTON / Isobel Crawley
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK (Netflix)
UZO ADUBA / Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren
JASON BIGGS / Larry Bloom
DANIELLE BROOKS / Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson
LAVERNE COX / Sophia Burset
JACKIE CRUZ / Flaca
CATHERINE CURTIN / Wanda Bell
LEA DELARIA / Carrie “Big Boo” Black
BETH FOWLER / Sister Ingalls
YVETTE FREEMAN / Irma
GERMAR TERRELL GARDNER / Charles Ford
KIMIKO GLENN / Brook Soso
ANNIE GOLDEN / Norma Romano
DIANE GUERRERO / Maritza Ramos
MICHAEL J. HARNEY / Ofc. Sam Healy
VICKY JEUDY / Janae Watson
JULIE LAKE / Angie Rice
LAUREN LAPKUS / Susan Fischer
SELENIS LEYVA / Gloria Mendoza
NATASHA LYONNE / Nicky Nichols
TARYN MANNING / Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett
JOEL MARSH GARLAND / Scott O’Neill
MATT McGORRY / Ofc. John Bennett
ADRIENNE C. MOORE / Black Cindy
KATE MULGREW / Galina “Red” Reznikov
EMMA MYLES / Leanne Taylor
JESSICA PIMENTEL / Maria Ruiz
DASCHA POLANCO / Dayanara Diaz
ALYSIA REINER / Natalie “Fig” Figueroa
JUDITH ROBERTS / Taslitz
ELIZABETH RODRIGUEZ / Aleida Diaz
BARBARA ROSENBLAT / Miss Rosa
NICK SANDOW / Joe Caputo
ABIGAIL SAVAGE / Gina
TAYLOR SCHILLING / Piper Chapman
CONSTANCE SHULMAN / Yoga Jones
DALE SOULES / Frieda
YAEL STONE / Lorna Morello
LORRAINE TOUSSAINT / Yvonne “Vee” Parker
LIN TUCCI / Anita DeMarco
SAMIRA WILEY / Poussey Washington
SAG AWARDS HONORS FOR STUNT ENSEMBLES
Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
“UNBROKEN” (Universal Pictures)
Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Comedy or Drama Series
“GAME OF THRONES” (HBO)
LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Screen Actors Guild 51st Annual Life Achievement Award
DEBBIE REYNOLDS
