SAG Awards 2012: The Winners’ Reactions

Winners for the 18th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were announced Sunday evening at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium.

PHOTOS: SAG Awards 2012 Red Carpet Arrivals

Christopher Plummer (supporting male actor, film) called the Actor (as the SAG Award is called) a lovely award because it comes from other actors. “Usually we’re madly jealous of each other but what sweethearts we become.” One of the people he thanked on stage was his wife “for coming to me rescue and saving my life.” Backstage Plummer elaborated on the comment, saying decades ago he had been a “terrible drunk” and his wife forced him to stop drinking. “She was quite vicious about; I was really going down hill,” he said. Plummer reprimanded one reporter who asked if the man wanted to win the Oscar. “That is an awful question,” he snorted, but did add that actors don’t go into the profession thinking about the statues. “If we did, we wouldn’t last five minutes.” – Borys Kit

Alec Baldwin (supporting male actor, TV series) was thrust into the Republican nomination debate when he was asked his thoughts on the nominees’ attacks on gays. He called it a non-partisan trait that rears its head during election. “The Republicans are nervous that if they don¹t have a real red state candidate, they will have a tough time getting Christians coming to the polls,” he said, adding that many Republicans are scared that is Mitt Romney is the party’s nominees, “a big stripe of the fabric will stay home.” Almost of bigger concern to him was the many attacks Newt Gingrich had made on Romney, which he thinks will act as fodder for Barack Obama; all Obama needs to do it run clips of Gingrich “and that’s his commercial.” Baldwin is one of Hollywood¹s more outspoken actors and he said speaking out does have its costs. “The most successful film stars are the ones that you know nothing about. (They) keep it very sanitized. I wish I had done it myself back then.” Oh, and he said he is still playing Words with Friends, just on Virgin Atlantic, not  American Airlines. – Borys Kit

Octavia Spencer (supporting female actor, film) talked about taking on the weighty issue of the pressures to stay thin. “If more women ate, they’d be a lot happier,” said The Help star. “I know I¹m grumpy when I don’t eat.” But on the other side of the spectrum, overweight women are barraged by negativity as well. “Society has told them, continues to tell them, if you reach a certain weight you’re invaluable.” The one thing Spencer has learned from her movie was that you can’t be silent. “To be silent is to be passive,” she said. – Borys Kit

PHOTOS: SAG Awards Nominees and Winners

Jessica Lange (supporting female actor, TV series), a two-time Oscar winner, collected her first SAG Award for her turn as the creepy next door neighbor in Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk‘s American Horror Story and told reporters backstage that she’s still “seriously thinking” about returning for season two of the FX horror anthology series. The role, she said, was a challenge for her in terms of working in a new medium. “It was like being open to the possibility of anything happening with in the moment,” she said. “I found that really exhilarating and always surprising. For me it kicked it up to a different level; [it was] an experience that I hadn’t had before.”  – Lesley Goldberg

The cast of ABC’s Modern Family (ensemble, TV comedy) — speaking to reporters backstage while Mary Tyler Moore accepted her lifetime achievement award — said they’d be lucky one day to be considered in the same group of the comedy legends. “We have a great opportunity here and maybe some day people will look back at this cast of actors and put us at the same level that they think of Mary Tyler Moore, The Andy Griffith Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show,” cast member Eric Stonestreet said Sunday, with co-star Ed O’Neill, noting that EP Christopher Lloyd‘s father, David, wrote for MTM. Winning the SAG Award for the second year in a row, and weeks after the series took home the Golden Globe for best comedy, Ty Burrell said the show’s awards season success far exceeded the cast’s best-case scenario. “It’s a show that the country seems to really be liking,” he told reporters, adding that the Emmy-winning series will shortly be announcing be doing more for charity with its upcoming fourth season, with details to be announced soon. – Lesley Goldberg

Steve Buscemi (leading male actor, TV drama) and the cast of Boardwalk Empire (ensemble, TV drama), collecting their second SAG drama actor and series statuettes in as many years, gave a collective shout-out to its many cast members whose characters failed to survive the sophomore season of the HBO period drama. “It’s a real honor,” Buscemi told reporters backstage Sunday, giving kudos to Dabney Coleman, Michael Pitt, Aleksa Palladino and Bob Clohessy, whose characters were among those who were brutally killed during season two. Speaking to the show’s success, co-star Gretchen Mol touted the Atlantic City prohibition gangster drama’s ability to surprise the audience. “It’s amazing to me what [the writers] are able to get away with,” she said of her character, who it was revealed this season had an incestuous relationship with her son, Jimmy (Pitt). “I’m amazed at the end of the season I know these new things about the character and I’ve gone somewhere I never expected to go… It’s so bold and scary and they get away with it.” – Lesley Goldberg

STORY: SAG Awards 2012 – ‘The Help’ Dominates Film Honors, ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Tops TV

The Artist‘s Jean Dujardin (leading male actor, film) playfully deflected questions about the increasingly possibility that he could capture France’s first lead actor in a drama Academy Award. When presented the facts — the past SAG best actor in a drama winners have gone on to take home the Oscar, Dujardin broke into song — the French national anthem — before noting that it was too early to tell and that the journey has been “amazing already.” A clearly startled Dujardin, addressing reporters backstage in both French and a shaky English, also said he was open to more stateside roles. “Maybe another silent movie in America,” he said with a laugh noting that he’d have improve his “rusty” English. While the actor next has a French film shooting in April, Dujardin smiled at the possibility of crossing over. “Like George Valentin says, ‘With pleasure,'” he said. – Lesley Goldberg

Viola Davis (leading female actor, film) said that during her promotions for The Help she became more like her character, the maid with a growing sense of self, Abilene Clark. In some situations, she found herself defending her choice of playing a maid in a story set in 1963. “I had to find my voice as a woman of color, as an artist, and I never thought I would be put in a position like that,” said Davis, standing in front of the 11-person cast representing the movie. “I was mostly a character actor. It made me feel like Abilene finding her own voice and not staying silent.” Davis beat out Meryl Streep in the best actress category, surprising many. But she played down her win “over” Streep. “I don¹t see that ‘best’ thing going on. Every time I start  job I feel like I’m starting with a clean slate,” she said, adding that she sometimes feels like she’ll be discovered that she can¹t really act. “So it’s hard for me to feel like I triumphed over Meryl Streep. I just feel like more people checked my box more. And I feel like I fooled them.” The win of Davis and Spencer, the first time that both categories were won by women of color, meant a lot veteran black actress Cicely Tyson. “What I saw tonight was extreme promise and hope,” she said. “There was always this idea that women could never work at the box office. Well we overworked this time I am hoping that the industry sees us as the artists that we are. I think we made history tonight and I hop we can continue on that path.” – Borys Kit