The 20th annual Screen Actors Guild marked the next stop in the 2014 award season and the thickening of the race to the Academy Awards.
“American Hustle” snagged the Actor for outstanding cast in a Motion Picture, the equivalent to best picture. While accepting, Bradley Cooper thanked director David O. Russell for being “an actors director” and making everyone feel as if they were apart of a family.
From the small screen, “Breaking Bad” won awards for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series and for lead actor Bryan Cranston. ABC’s “Modern Family” received it’s fourth consecutive win for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series and its actor Ty Burrell, who plays Phil Dunphy, won for male actor in a comedy series.
Matthew McConaughey picked up the another award for his portrayal of real-life AIDS patient and drug smuggler, Ron Woodroof, in “Dallas Buyers Club.” His cast mate, Jared Leto, also took an Actor for his transformation into transgender AIDS patient, Rayon.
Leto chose to dedicate his award to the people who have lost their lives because of the disease and to those still living with HIV/AIDS. The Musician/Actor also honored the “Rayons of the world, the people who have made a choice to live their lives not as others would have them live it, but as they have chosen to dream it.”
Lupita Nyong’o beat out award show darling, Jennifer Lawrence, for supporting female actor in “12 Years a Slave.” Her speech started out with a “yay” and an anecdote about telling her father that she landed the role alongside Brad Pitt.
Julia-Louis Dreyfus, who long ago broke the Seinfeld curse, took the honor for female actor in a comedy series in HBO’s “Veep.” While accepting, she jokingly began reading the acceptance speech she would have read if she had won a Golden Globe.
For TV movie and miniseries’ Michael Douglas and Helen Mirren both picked up awards for female actor and male actor, respectively. Douglas for his work as Liberace in “Behind the Candelabra” and Mirren for “Phil Spector.”
Rita Moreno, who had appeared in works such as “West Side Story” and “The King and I,” was honored with the 50th SAG Life Achievement Award. The triple threat star is one of the 11 people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony.
Other winners in the two-hour telecast were Cate Blanchett for Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” and Maggie Smith from “Downton Abbey.”
The Academy Awards ceremony air on March 2nd hosted by Ellen Degeneres.
