BOB BALABAN: Will it fall? Well, my God, first of all, this is amazing. And due to the constraints of time and the high volume of actors in our movie, I’m going to give a collective “thank you” on behalf of the 47 actors who contain – who are the ensemble that is “Gosford Park.”
And so collectively we thank our agents, our managers, our lawyers, our business managers, [laughter] our high school drama teachers, our dialect coaches, [laughter] our parents’ significant others, children and the babysitters who sat for them and enabled us to attend this ceremony tonight. Thank you. [applause]
Most of all, thanks to our indomitable and intrepid Robert Altman. [applause] Our brilliant writer, Julian Fellowes . [applause] Our fabulous casting director, who assembled all of us and held us together, Mary Selway. [applause] Our friends at Capitol, and especially our friends at USA Films, who handled our delicate movie with enormous care and intelligence, and we’re very grateful for that.
Thank you to SAG and our fellow nominees, and we’re proud to be a part of this inspiring profession. Thank you. [applause]
Thanks very much, folks. You know, I’m a storyteller. We are storytellers. And ours is an ancient tradition, contemporized by the cinema and the capturing of light. And we should all be very proud of our place in society. On any given night, millions of people across the world buy a ticket for adventures that only we as storytellers can provide. We release burdens, we galvanize emotions, we make people laugh, we make people talk over breakfast.
This is a great job and I want to encourage every one of you in this room to give everything you can to the story. God bless narrative. God bless originality. Good night.
Oh, thank you so much. I am so proud to be an actor, I can’t tell you. It has saved my life. Acting has enriched my life, and it has made me learn so much about life, and I’m so proud to be here. Thank you so much to the actors for choosing me this year. Thank you. [cheers and applause]
I want to thank the entire cast. Any actress knows that she is only as good as the cast that surrounds her. I want to thank Coronji Calhoun, a first time acting job; Sean Combs; Heath Ledger; and especially Peter Boyle and Billy Bob Thornton. [applause] They are so good, and every single day they forced me to grow, to learn, and to be better at the craft of acting. And this is so much as much theirs as it is mine.
I want to thank our fearless leader: our director, Marc Forster, who was amazing, and who I loved and I trusted. [applause] And he guided me through this – this work. And Ivana Chubbuck, who helped me get to the heart of who this woman was; my manager, Vincent Cirrincione; CAA; our producer, Lee Daniels; and my life partner, Eric.
Thank you so much for--[applause]--encouraging me to take this risk. And it has paid off big time tonight! Thank you so much!
[applause]
Outstanding Performance by a
Female Actor in a Leading Role
Cast of Jennifer Connelly
A Beautiful Mind
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A Beautiful Mind
Outstanding Performance by a
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Cast of Judi Dench
Iris
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Outstanding Performance by a
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Cast of Sissy Spacek
In The Bedroom
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Outstanding Performance by a
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Bridget Jones's Diary
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Cast of Ian McKellen
Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Transcript of Ian McKellen
Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
I thought I’d had my turn, folks. Thank you very, very much indeed.
Best award I ever got until now was British Actors Equity, who gave me an award for Best Supporting Actor in the West End about 40 years ago. [laughter] There was money involved. They actually gave you a check. [laughter] Come on, Screen Actors Guild! Next year maybe… [laughter]
I owe this to one man, Peter Jackson, the director who invited me to try and impersonate the icon of Gandalf, and his trust. And the wonderful people he got together to support him in New Zealand—the actors, so many of them here tonight, and the crew. And to him and to SAG, many, many thanks.
Oh, my god! [laughter] [looking at the award] Isn’t he sweet? I wondered when I was down there if he had any pants on. [laughter] He doesn’t! [laughs]
Oh, god, you know, in the medieval Britain, actors were called rogues and vagabonds. And we are all actually rogues and vagabonds—no matter how we look tonight—under the skin. In “Gosford Park,” you know, there were no trailers, there were no trainers, there were no assistants, there were no special hair and make-up people. There was just a group of rogues and vagabonds with a brilliant director, Bob Altman--[applause]--with a wonderful script by Julian Fellowes. And we just all got down to it.
I’m incredibly proud to have been amongst those great actors: rogues and vagabonds to a man and a woman, in spite of the Dames and Sirs. [laughs] We’re all the same under the skin. I thank you from the bottom of my heart, you rogues and vagabonds, for my cute little man. [laughs] Thank you very much.
