I'm backstage right now and Julie Christie - a winner tonight best actress in a movie ("Away From Her") has just left. What a fantastic-looking woman.

We were expecting Ruby Dee (above) who won for supporting actress but some girl just got on the mic and said: "No one else is coming back, please exit out the Jefferson gate...and, it's raining outside."

What a bad news bear.

Anyway, Daniel Day-Lewis was back here earlier and he was so moving in talking about Heath Ledger who he dedicated his best actor award to. This is what he said during his acceptance speech: "It’s always been the work of other actors, and there are many actors in this room tonight, including my fellow nominees who have given that sense of regeneration and… Heath Ledger gave it to me. [applause] In “Monster’s Ball,” that character that he created, it seemed to be almost like an unformed being, retreating from themselves, retreating from his father, from his life, even retreating from us, and yet we wanted to follow him, and yet we’re scared to follow him almost. It was unique. And then, of course, in “Brokeback Mountain,” he was unique, he was perfect. [applause] And that scene in the trailer at the end of the film is as moving as anything that I think I’ve ever seen. And I’d like to dedicate this to Heath Ledger. So, thank you very much. Thank you so much."

It was a beautiful tribute and so from the heart. Backstage, Daniel said that even though he had never met Heath, he had been thinking of little else since the young actor's death on Tuesday at the age of 28.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 9:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sorry, I didn't get to talk to Brad and Angelina but I did see them walk by. I saw a lot of movie stars walk by, or blow by I should say. Once they do the television interviews, we print and online reporters sometimes don't get to gab with the likes of Cate Blanchett or Josh Brolin or Daniel Day-Lewis or even Zac Efron. But we get to see them wave and seeming to say under their breath: "Sorry suckers!"

But I'll tell ya, just seeing the great Ruby Dee walk by is better than talking to just about anyone and how great that once she got inside, she won the best supporting actress prize for "American Gangster." Will an Oscar follow?

Anyway, it was tough to tell whether the red carpet at the Shrine Auditorium was the site of the arrivals for the Screen Actors Guild Awards or the site of a giant family reunion - make that a reunion under a plastic tent to keep the rain out.

The ongoing writers strike meant that many of the actors who star in such shows as "Desperate Housewives," "Ugly Betty," "Mad Men" "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Office" had not seen each other since production shut down in December, or in some cases even earlier.

"It's exciting to be here and see all of our teammates," said Nicollette Sheridan of "Housewives." "It's nice to see a higher morale because the strike has been devastating for so many."

A nominee for "Samantha Who?," Christina Applegate started our chat by coughing. She was fighting a cold but being a showbiz trouper, she was there on the red carpet looking like a million bucks.

She lamented on how the strike put a halt to what is a hot new show.

"It's been a great ride and it's been hard to kind of just stop," she said. "It's like a just treadmill turning off when you're on like, nine. It's caused some damage, to everyone I think creatively but we had to support our writers, I agree with them. But it's time to get back to work because a lot of us are going looney."

Even though Tina Fey ended up winning the award for comedy actress, Christina said she was thrilled to be attending her first SAG award show as a nominee: "You don't do your work for that but when it does happen, it's so nice. I'm always surprised and I'm always so humbled and so grateful. It's huge to me to be recognized by my peers."

John Slattery was one of the few double nominees on the red carpet with the casts of both "Mad Men" and "Desperate Housewives" up for ensemble awards. But he would be sitting with the "Mad Men" gang.
"This is the first time I've been here and it's a zoo!" he told me. "It's a little overwhelming but it's good, it's fun."

What about being so in demand these days?
"It's good to be working, I've been lucky," he said. "I wish the strike would work itself out so we can all really get back to work. "

It was really fun to meet John Krazinski of "The Office" whose cast won the SAG award for best ensemble in a comedy series for the second consecutive year. Prior to the show, John wasn't too confident of another win.

"It's really hard," he said. "Not to sound political but all the shows this year, they're fantastic and I watch all of them. But this is probably one of the most fun shows to be a part of."

John is making a nice career for himself in the movies too with a starring role in the comedy "License to Wed" and will next appear opposite George Clooney in "Leatherheads."
"This guy George Clooney, he's gonna be a big star," John joked. "Mark my words."

It was so great to see the classy Hal Holbrook and his wife, Dixie Carter.
I asked Dixie how it feels to have her husband of nearly 25 years nominated for both the SAG award and an Oscar for his performance in "Into the Wild."
"I am dizziy with delight," said Dixie, best known as Julia Sugarbaker on "Designing Women." "It's dreamy and unforeseen and glorious turn of events as you can imagine. So I'm smiling all the time."

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 5:16 PM | Permalink

I gotta get ready for the SAG Awards in a bit but wanted to share some of my red carpet interviews from last night's Director's Guild of America Awards. I had such great chats with Lorainne Bracco, Debra Messing and Kristen Chenoweth that I'm going to save those for columns later this week. But here are some of the others...

Amy Ryan, Oscar nominated for her performance in "Gone Baby Gone," was one of the presenters and I asked her how she was coping with the awards season hoopla. She has already won many critics prizes and will compete for the SAG Award tonight: "I'm hanging in there, a lot of Airborne, a lot of vitamins. I'm really enjoying it. It was surreal in the beginning but I'm more in the moment now. The nice thing is, you get used to it out there from show to show. It's a great party to be at."
So, how badly does she want to win that Oscar?
"I thought about it in the beginning and then it just dawned on me that it doesn't really matter because everyone's winner. If you don't win, look at the company you're with who also didn't win. That's really good company to be in. It's not like you get demoted back to the end of the line. You get to stay arms-length with four amazing actresses and I'd be proud to be there."

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It was fun to talk to first-time DGA nominee Tony Gilroy who was nominated for his feature fiolm directorial debut "Michael Clayton." He also wrote the script and is a double Oscar nominee. We spoke on Oscar morning nominations morning earlier in the week and I wondered if it had sunk in yet.
"Maybe it will around Memorial Day," he said.
And he isn't sweating over whether he will win: "You know what? I would have quit in October and it would have felt like I'd already won. I have the great luxury of not expecting very much going forward - honestly not expecting very much. There's no huge expectation. I don't have that burden."
He is getting used to the awards show scene now: "We started in Venice and that was sort of like stepping into a hurricane and I'm getting a little bit better at it. I've watched George [Clooney] do this and I've seen what a real pro looks like."

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My favorite interview of the night came when chatting up the great Hal Holbrook, Oscar nominated for "Into the Wild." We had done a telephone interview last month and he told me he had read my column on him and that he was greatly moved by it. He had meant to write a note. Who needs a note? To have him say that meant the world.

Hal has won four Emmys and a Tony Award during his long and distinguished career. To get his first Oscar nod at the age of 82 have been icing in the cake: "Well, you know there isn't any award in the whole embrace of show business that could top the Academy Award. Just getting a nomination is such a wonderful, wonderful reward - especially after you've been at this job for 65 years."

I found it shocking that Holbrook's director, Sean Penn, and co-star Emile Hirsch were not nominated for Oscars. So was Hal: "That is, that is, that is, that is unbelievable that Sean did not get nominated or the picture. And Emile! Anybody who thinks the role that Emile Hirsch had was a simple easy one, doesn't understand acting. That young man had to go through more dimensions in that role than most people ever have and they were subtle dimensions."

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I wrote earlier about a heckler during Julian Schnabel's acceptance speech. I just read in USAToday.com that the heckler was none other than Sean Young! That girl will do anything to get back into the headlines. But this not the kind of publicity that is good publcity. Here is the report: Apparently Sean Young had endured one acceptance speech too many.

At Saturday's DGA Awards, where each of the five nominated feature film directors gets to make a speech before the winner is announced, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" director Julian Schnabel was the last to deliver his words. Shortly after he took the podium, Young, seated near the stage, cut him off by shouting out, "Oh come on — get to it!"

A shocked Schnabel searched the crowd to ask who was scolding him. When the actress repeated "get to it!" Schnabel quickly wrapped up his speech, instructing Young to finish it. But upon the audience's insistence, Schnabel finished, and Young, stumbling in her white fur coat, was escorted out of the ballroom by two security guards, and at one point fell to the floor.

Oh my.

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 11:12 AM | Permalink

The Directors Guild of America Awards ceremony ended about 90 minutes ago with Joel Coen and Ethan Coen winning the feature film directing award for "No Country for Old Men." They were presented the award by last year's winner, Martin Scorsese, who brought a glass of champagne with him to the podium and toasted all the nominees before announcing the winner,

It was a star-studded affair at the Century Plaza Hotel with presenters that included 2008 Oscar nominees Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Hal Holbrook, Amy Ryan, Daniel-Day Lewis, Marion Cotillard and Ellen Page as well as Josh Brolin, Vanessa Williams, Emile Hirsch, Debra Messing, Chi McBride, Kristin Chenoweth, Anna Paquin, John Larroquette and Helen Hunt.

The evening was hosted, for the 21st consecutive year, by Carl Reiner who walked out onto the stage and confessed to the audience: "I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning feeling so [expletive]."
He wondered if he should maybe find a replacement but decided to keep the gig after "I went through a list of all the people in the business who might've done as I and I couldn't come up with one!"

Reiner, in his mid-80s, was sharp and spontanious throughout. At one point he spotted Day-Lewis sitting in the audience and said: "He [is] so (expletive] gifted. There are other actors walking around without the gift because he got most of it.'

Day-Lewis was funny and touching while presenting a silver plate nomination medallion to his "There Will Be Blood" director Paul Michael Anderson: "If you have to go stark raving mad in the desert. I'd rather do it with Paul Michael Anderson than just about anyone I can think of. ...Paul handed everything to me on a silver plate and for yiu Paul, here's a silver plate piled high with admiration and pride."

Josh Brolin was very, very funny when presenting the Coens with their nomination medallion as he alternated between praising them and roasting them: "I had the pleasure of working with these socially challenged individuals for three months. If truth be told, I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot." When Brolin left the stage with the Coens, Reiner remarked:"That is the most [expletive] charming man I've ever seen" and remarked that directors in the audience should take notice.
They already have: Aming Brolin's recent roles in addition to "Country" are "American Gangster" and "Grindhouse."

Tony Gilroy accepted his nomination medallion for "Michael Clayton"), his first film as a director and said: "Wow. What a trip. To be honored by your peers. All I was trying to do when we started this was to become a peer...I'm going to thank the people who are here and lie to everybody else. We can all tell George Clooney that it was all about him."

With Sean Penn not present at the awards ceremony, it was up to Hal Holbrook and Emile Hirsch - two of the stars of Penn's "Into the Wild" - to both present and accept Penn's nomination medallion. Holbrook got a big hand when he said of Penn: "He's been called a rebel - that's good. Rebels are who got this country started."
Holbrook also said: "He has instinct and he's willing to trust it. When you're under Sean's direction, you get the feeling he trusts you."
When it came time for Hirsch to speak, he got a boig laugh when he looked at the audience and said: "I kind of feel like I'm on this massive job interview right now." Hirsch said Penn was "challenging at a time when for me that that's what I was looking for. I don't think anyone else could have physically made this movie. He was always climbing mountains."

The evening's most awkward moment came when Julian Schnabel was accepting his nomination medallion and a woman heckled him. He stopped cold and asked, "Who just said that to me?...Why don't YOU finish my speech darling?'"

Posted by Greg Hernandez at 12:00 AM | Permalink