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‘Black Panther’ scores big win at Screen Actors Guild Awards
LOS ANGELES, Jan 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Groundbreaking superhero blockbuster
“Black Panther” on Sunday won the top prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards
— a major boost to its campaign for Oscars glory next month.
The film won for best ensemble cast, besting musical romance “A Star Is
Born,” Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,” Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” and
rom-com “Crazy Rich Asians.”
Chadwick Boseman, who plays the title role in what was the top-grossing
film in North America in 2018, explained the film’s significance alongside
his co-stars, nearly all of them black.
“We all know what it’s like to be told that there is not a place for you
to be featured, yet you are young, gifted and black,” Boseman told the
audience at the Shrine Auditorium.
“We knew that we had something special that we wanted to give the world —
that we could be full human beings in the roles that we were playing, that we
could create a world that exemplified a world we wanted to see.”
“Black Panther” also won for best stunt ensemble.
This year, the SAG Awards come at a key point in the race to next month’s
Academy Awards — just after the Oscars nominations, and well before voting
for the winners begins.
The Screen Actors Guild accounts for a major percentage of the 8,000-odd
Oscar voters, so the SAG winners will earn a lot of awards season momentum.
Despite four nominations, “A Star Is Born” — the latest iteration of the
classic Tinseltown story of an aging star and the ingenue he discovers —
went home empty-handed.
One major absentee at the 25th edition of the SAG Awards was Alfonso
Cuaron’s “Roma” — the top Oscar nomination getter was left out of SAG
contention.
– Sure bets and surprises –
While SAG-winning casts have only gone on to win a best picture Oscar
about half the time, the awards are better at predicting best actor winners
(79 percent) and best actress (75 percent).
Glenn Close solidified her frontrunner status in the race for the best
actress Oscar with a win for her searing work in “The Wife.”
So far this awards season, she has also won a Golden Globe and a Critics’
Choice Award.
For best actor, Rami Malek’s star-making turn as Queen frontman Freddie
Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody” was rewarded — over Christian Bale’s work in
another biopic, as former US vice president Dick Cheney in “Vice.”
“I just never in my wildest dreams thought I could be in a category with
these men,” said Malek, who also won a Golden Globe for the role and is
nominated for an Oscar.
Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”) continued his march to the Oscars by taking
the best supporting actor trophy for his work in civil rights dramedy “Green
Book.”
Ali — already a Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award winner — stars as
Don Shirley, a black pianist who hires a white Italian-American driver (Viggo
Mortensen) to help him on a tour of the segregated American South in the
1960s.
“I am just really grateful to be amongst this fraternity of people,
amongst this fraternity of artists who have the good fortune of getting to
deal and wrestle with the human condition and trying to do that responsibly,”
he said.
Emily Blunt meanwhile pulled off a major upset, winning the statuette for
best supporting actress for “A Quiet Place,” an innovative horror film
directed by her husband and co-star, John Krasinski.
“Thank you for giving me the part — you would have been in major trouble
if you hadn’t,” she quipped at Krasinski. “You are a stunning filmmaker.”
On the television side, NBC’s popular “This Is Us” won top honors for best
drama ensemble cast for the second year in a row, while popular Amazon series
“The Marvelous Mrs Maisel” swept the three prizes in the comedy categories.
Jason Bateman won best actor honors for dark Netflix drama “Ozark,” while
Sandra Oh triumphed for her work on BBC America drama “Killing Eve.”
And Tom Hanks presented a lifetime achievement award to veteran actor Alan
Alda, the star of the long-running TV comedy “M*A*S*H” who revealed last year
that he is battling Parkinson’s disease.
“It may never have been more urgent to see the world through another
person’s eyes than when a culture is divided so sharply,” Alda said to a rapt
audience.
“Actors can help, at least a little, just by doing what we do. (…) It
can’t solve everything, but it wouldn’t hurt.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/1413 hrs