Day-Lewis Tribute To Ledger Ennobles SAG Awards

At the risk of waxing corny when the subject was a model of eloquent restraint, Daniel Day-Lewis' brief tribute to Heath Ledger (as he picked up the twelve-pound statuette for Best Actor in There Will Be Blood) was worthy of making your eyes mist over. You don't have to have the view that Hollywood and its denizens are wonderful beings to grasp that this was one almost over-dedicated craftsman paying tribute to another. Our best actors are subject to some dark journeys on and off camera, as Day-Lewis can attest.

Whoever was directing the show (despite a general, if probably inevitable, overload of Brangelina shots) masterfully staged a series of cuts to the moment's attentive supporting cast (including his category competitors, whom he also honored), which lent gravitas to the remarks. First seen was Ryan Gosling, smilingly watchful as Day-Lewis begins, then Viggo Mortenson, keenly alert, John Travolta visibly bracing as the room's emotions rise, and Tommy Lee Jones, hawkeyed but buttoning up as the camera intrudes. Back to Mortenson , clapping now in response to the phrase "...that sense of regeneration--Heath Ledger gave it to me," then to Javier Bardem, visibly moved, Cate Blanchett, likewise, and Josh Brolin, clearly feeling a lump in his throat. Day-Lewis wrapped up by dedicating the award to Ledger (backstage, the actor would insist that out of respect for the family, the media should leave Ledger's family in peace). It was a moment that any forthcoming Oscar speech or ad lib (if indeed the ceremony goes on--the SAG awards were granted a dispensation from their fellow union, the WGA) will be hard pressed to match.

There were few surprises. Ruby Dee's win, at age 83, for her American Gangster work as Female Actor in a Supporting Role was a bit of an upset in a strong field, but the win for the Cast of No Country for Old Men was as logical as Javier Bardem's win for Supporting Actor. Like Day-Lewis---lesser talents whose speeches tend to be far more self-aggrandizing might learn from them--Bardem scrupulously thinks first to credit others ("The great Tommy Lee Jones") in his category. As Brolin--he of the ill-considered, "This is my frickin' moment" aside when Woody Harrelson reminded him to thank the Coen brothers during that cast award acceptance speech--told the press backstage, "This is the ensemble that never met". (The Coens won the top directing prized the night before from their brethren at the Directors Guild awards, a harbinger of an Oscar win in the past 53 of 59 cases.)

Per SAG practice, the press was restricted to pleading across ropes on the red carpet, then covering the awards from a backstage interview area, and even the execs. agents producers and other power players were by tradition confined to their own area so that the actors could be amongst themselves (and the busy TV cameras). The television wing of the ceremony saw a last-hurrah landslide for The Sopranos, welcome wins for both Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin of 30 Rock (she compared herself to a hat rack dancing with Fred Astaire in praising Baldwin, who was at a funeral and couldn't accept) and The Office's ensemble on the comedy side.

The media was quick to snap up the expressions of solidarity with the writers, as Julie Christie, looking pretty spectacular at 66 as she won her well-merited female supporting actor award for Away From Her, spoke up for unions, Tina Fey for the writers, and SAG President Alan Rosenberg delivered a real oration for solidarity.

Reverberating underneath Day-Lewis's graciousness was the news that Heath Ledger's friends and family had held a memorial for him in Westwood that day, as well as the ugly business perpetrated by an imbecilic Fox radio host (doesn't that make you immediately think of three or four names? I'm referring here to John Gibson) who slurred both Ledger and the gay theme of Brokeback Mountain on his January 22 show. A column by the Los Angeles Times' Mary McNamara proposing he be canned has triggered a volley of e-mail to the paper's site. He'll likely keep his job now that he's lamely apologized--in any event, crassness and bigotry are sooner strategies than hanging offenses at Fox.


(Daniel Day-Lewis accepts the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role for 'There Will Be Blood' onstage during the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild awards held at the Shrine Auditorium;Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)