At SAG Awards, stars offer messages of support for Taal Volcano victims

Amidst the glamour and celebrations at the 26th Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards in Los Angeles, California, some Hollywood celebrities’ and politicians’ voices took a somber note as they sent messages of support and solidarity to Filipinos affected by the Taal volcano eruption.

source: news.s-cbn.com

'Three Billboards' wins top prize at Screen Actors Guild Awards

LOS ANGELES -- Dark comedy "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" won three prizes at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards on Sunday in a ceremony marked by women and their stories amid the sexual misconduct scandal that has swept Hollywood.

The Fox Searchlight film about a furious woman seeking justice for the murder of her daughter was named best ensemble, the top SAG honor.

Frances McDormand won best actress and Sam Rockwell took home the best supporting actor statuette for their roles in the film.

Britain's Gary Oldman won best actor for playing wartime leader Winston Churchill in Focus Features' "Darkest Hour."

Allison Janney won for her supporting actress role as a demanding mother in independent ice-skating movie "I, Tonya."

The SAG awards are indicators of likely Oscar success in March because actors form the largest group of voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Oscar nominations will be announced on Tuesday.

The SAG ceremony took place after two days of marches by hundreds of thousands of women throughout the United States.

Host Kristen Bell said women were having a "watershed moment."

"Let's make sure we lead the charge with empathy and diligence because fear and anger never win the race," said Bell, star of television's "The Good Place."

Accusations of sexual misconduct have forced dozens of powerful men in Hollywood to step down, be fired or dropped from creative projects.

Women, many of them leading actresses, have responded by breaking their silence through the #MeToo social media movement and the Time's Up campaign for legal support of victims.


On the red carpet, women swapped the black gowns that marked support for victims of sexual harassment at the Golden Globes two weeks ago for brighter blues, green and metallic hues.


Women were the dominant theme inside the Shrine Auditorium.

Nicole Kidman, 50, won for playing a battered wife in HBO's female-centric TV series "Big Little Lies."

"How wonderful that our careers today can go beyond 40 years old. Twenty years ago we were pretty washed up by this stage in our lives. This is not the case now," Kidman said.

Aziz Ansari, nominated for his Netflix comedy series "Master of None," was a no-show on Sunday after making headlines last week when a woman described feeling violated following an awkward date last year. Ansari said he believed their sexual activity was consensual.

Ansari lost the television comedy actor statuette to William H. Macy for "Shameless."

James Franco, a best actor nominee for "The Disaster Artist," did show up but skipped the red carpet and did not win. Franco had kept a low profile since describing allegations of sexual impropriety against him by five women two weeks ago as "not accurate."

In television, NBC's sentimental family drama "This is Us" was named the best drama ensemble cast in a surprise win over presumed front runners "The Crown" and dystopian series "A Handmaid's Tale."

The cast of HBO political satire "Veep" won best ensemble for a television comedy. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who is undergoing treatment for breast cancer and missed the SAG show, was named best comedy actress.

"She's genuinely been in good spirits when we've seen her, which I think will carry her along ... She is incredibly strong and is uniquely able to combat something like this,” Timothy Simons, who plays Jonah Ryan on "Veep," told reporters on Sunday.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

'Hidden Figures' takes top prize at SAG Awards

LOS ANGELES -- Fox's biographical comedy-drama "Hidden Figures" landed the top prize Sunday at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, seen as a major bellwether for the Oscars.

Starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae, it took the trophy for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture, the SAG equivalent of a best film Academy Award.
Theodore Melfi's movie, which recounts the story of African-American mathematicians who helped NASA put the first men in space, was a surprise winner, with Kenneth Lonergan's "Manchester by the Sea" widely tipped for the top prize.

It also beat coming-of-age drama "Moonlight," comedy "Captain Fantastic" and race relations story "Fences."

"Manchester" star Casey Affleck -- the frontrunner for the best actor Oscar -- was also shut out, with the equivalent SAG award going instead to Denzel Washington for "Fences."

Washington, 62, who has two Oscars, also beat competition from Andrew Garfield ("Hacksaw Ridge"), Viggo Mortensen ("Captain Fantastic") and Ryan Gosling ("La La Land").

In the best actress category, Emma Stone won for "La La Land," Damien Chazelle's whimsical tribute to the musicals of Hollywood's golden age.

The support acting awards went to Mahershala Ali for "Moonlight" and Viola Davis for "Fences."

On the television side, five series were tied going into the show with three nominations each -- Netflix's "The Crown" and "Stranger Things," HBO's "Game of Thrones" and "Westworld," and FX's "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story."

It was "The Crown," which follows the lives and loves of Britain's post-war Royal Family, which came out on top, picking up best actor awards for John Lithgow and Claire Foy while "Stranger Things" won the award for best cast in a drama series.

The SAG nominations are the second major announcement in Tinseltown's glittering awards season, which climaxes with the Academy Awards on February 26.

The evening was marked by speeches denouncing President Donald Trump's immigration ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus followed suit as she picked up her second SAG award for comedy acting in "Veep" -- her eighth statuette overall.

In a speech aimed solely at Trump, Dreyfus -- whose father fled Nazi-occupied France -- said she loved the US but hated its blemishes, adding "this immigration ban is a blemish."

She also poked fun at Trump's focus on attendance at his inauguration and allegations of voter fraud.

"Whether the Russians did or did not hack the SAG awards, I look out across the million, maybe 1.5 million people in this room and say this award is legitimate and I won it," she said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Actors of color win big at SAG Awards amid diversity furor

LOS ANGELES -- "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to diverse TV," Idris Elba joked on stage after winning twice at Saturday's Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, where actors of color claimed a slew of wins amid a furor in Hollywood over the lack of on-screen diversity.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Brie Larson and the cast of "Spotlight" -- all white actors -- won the top three film awards of the night, but the rest mainly honored diverse cast and roles. That is in stark contrast to the Oscars, where no actors of color are nominated this year for the industry's highest honors.

"Spotlight," about the Boston Globe's probe of child abuse in the Catholic Church, beat out hip-hop biopic "Straight Outta Compton" for best film ensemble. The movie starred Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams.

"This is not only for survivors of this horrific situation, this is really for the disenfranchised," Keaton said. "This is for the Flint, Michigans in the world, for the powerless."

DiCaprio was named best actor for playing a fur-trapper in pioneer-era retribution drama "The Revenant."

"We all stand on shoulders of giants, so thank all those actors from past who have inspired me and all the actors in this room," DiCaprio said.

Larson, who played a woman held hostage with a young son in "Room," was named best actress, while Sweden's Alicia Vikander won best supporting actress for playing the wife of transgender artist Lili Elbe in "The Danish Girl."

"Spotlight," DiCaprio, Larson and Vikander are all nominated for Oscars, and with their Saturday wins, are cemented as front-runners in their respective categories.

Elba, a black British actor, won two SAG awards: best supporting actor for playing a mercenary commander in Netflix's West African war drama "Beasts of No Nation," and best actor in a limited series for BBC's crime drama "Luther."

"We made a film about real people and real lives, and to be awarded for that is very special," Elba said of his "Beasts" win.

In the television categories, which featured far more diverse actors and roles, Netflix's women's prison show "Orange Is the New Black," won the best comedy series ensemble award for the second consecutive year.

"Look at this stage," cast member Laura Prepon said while accepting the award. "This is what we talk about when we talk about diversity. Different race, color, creed, sexual orientation."

"Orange" star Uzo Aduba won best comedy series actress for playing kooky inmate Crazy Eyes, Queen Latifah won best actress in a TV miniseries for playing blues singer Bessie Smith in HBO's "Bessie," and Viola Davis won best drama actress for ABC's "How to Get Away with Murder." All three actresses are black.

Jeffrey Tambor won best comedy series actor for playing Maura Pfefferman, an aging wealthy transgender woman in Amazon's "Transparent."

"I'd like to dedicate this award to the non-Maura Pfeffermans who don't have a lot of cash for their operations, for their medicine, for their freedom," Tambor said.

Kevin Spacey was named best drama actor for political thriller "House of Cards," and British period drama "Downton Abbey" was named best drama ensemble.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com