Viola Davis, Queen Latifah and Uzo Aduba were also among the winners at the 22nd SAG Awards.
Advertisement
British actor Idris Elba won best supporting actor for Netflix’s “Beasts of No Nation”, and US actress Queen Latifah scooped best actress for HBO’s TV miniseries “Bessie“.
Elba, who portrayed a commandant in a brutal African conflict, won over Christian Bale for “The Big Short”, Mark Rylance for “Bridge of Spies”, Michael Shannon for “99 Homes” and Jacob Tremblay for “Room“.
When Elba won his award for the TV crime drama “Luther“, he deftly summed up the tone of the evening onstage with this play on words: “Welcome to diverse TV”.
For the second straight year, “Orange is the New Black” doubled down: Uzo Aduba repeated as Best Female Actor in a Comedy.
The SAG Awards committee is singing a different tune on the issue of diversity, which has several black celebrities including Will and Jada Pinkett Smith boycotting this year’s Oscars.
“Diversity is not a trending topic”, she said.
“The world is very diverse”.
Stars began arriving on the red carpet Saturday at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium.
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 honoured diverse cast and roles.
Based in the UK, Larry is passionate about all things news and technology related.
The actress gave an emotional speech and said: “I would like to take an opportunity to acknowledge the actors who are at home, not here in this room with us, but hoping to one day be in this room with us”, she said as she gave her emotional thank you speech.
The awards were based on voting by the 116,741 SAG-AFTRA members. “To any young actors, I encourage you to watch the history of cinema, because we stand on the shoulders of giants”, DiCaprio said. Alicia Vikander took best supporting actress for “The Danish Girl“.
There were some notable names among the SAG Award nominations, too-names that had been unfortunately snubbed by the Academy Awards.
In addition, Jeffrey Tambor won for male actor in a comedy series for his turn in the trans-focused show Transparent, defeating, among others, out actor Jim Parsons ( The Big Bang Theory ).
Advertisement
Recalling the uphill battle she faced, Burnett remembered being warned that “comedy variety is a man’s game”.
