Moments at the SAG Awards: Daniel Day-Lewis dedicates award to Heath Ledger...

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."

Here is video of the speech:

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: "I thought he was beautiful. I just had a very strong feeling I would have liked him very much as a man," he said. "I admired him very much. I'm absolutely certain he would have done many wonderful things in his life. We should leave him alone and we should leave his family alone to suffer their unimaginable grief in private, and it's not going to happen," Day-Lewis said backstage. "We should just stop encouraging people to have greater and greater interest in raking over every detail, which is none of our business anyhow."