03/12/2001
By David Germain / Associated Press
Julia Roberts won the best-actress honor at the Screen Actors Guild awards Sunday for her sharp-tongued, flashily dressed fling in Erin Brockovich. Benicio Del Toro took the best-actor prize for his worldly wise take on a Mexican drug cop in Traffic.
Both have Oscar nominations for the same roles, though Del Toro is competing in the supporting-actor category at the Academy Awards.
"I'm just shaking. Thank you actors!'' Roberts told the audience, choking back tears. "Just great, great actors, and now I really feel so much better about my level of talent than I did this afternoon. I'm not always sure. It's not just me, and there's just so many people who know I'm a fraud to just stand here alone.''
Traffic won the award for best acting by an entire movie cast.
"I'd like to thank the whole cast of this picture, because I'm only as good as those guys,'' Del Toro said.
Albert Finney's turn as Roberts' curmudgeonly boss in Erin Brockovich earned him the supporting-actor honor. Judi Dench won the supporting-actress prize for her role as a cantankerous grandmother in Chocolat.
Finney and Dench were not at the ceremony.
The union's awards and the Directors Guild of America honors, which were presented Saturday, traditionally are barometers for the Academy Awards.
Ang Lee won the directors' prize for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which bodes well for his Oscar prospects March 25. Since the award was first given in 1949, only four Directors Guild recipients have failed to win the Oscar.
Lee beat Steven Soderbergh, nominated for both Erin Brockovich and Traffic, Cameron Crowe for Almost Famous and Ridley Scott for Gladiator.
Lee, Scott and Soderbergh have four of the Oscar directing nominations. The fifth Oscar nod went to Stephen Daldry for Billy Elliot.
Before Saturday's ceremony, Soderbergh said he would not offer academy voters any guidance on which of his movies he would prefer them to support. Some in Hollywood feel that could cost Soderbergh an Oscar because his votes might be split between Erin Brockovich and Traffic.
Others say Soderbergh's two nominations will not cancel each other out because Oscar voters generally support the one achievement they think is most deserving.
"I don't see why this is any different, just because he's nominated for the two movies,'' said Scott Greenstein, chairman of USA Films, which released Traffic.
In SAG's six previous awards shows, 10 of the 12 winners in lead-acting categories went on to win Oscars. Because of a tie one year, the guild has honored 13 performers in supporting categories, with seven also winning an Oscar.
The guild honors performers in five movie and eight television categories.
The White House series The West Wing dominated the television-drama categories. Martin Sheen, who plays the president, won for best dramatic actor, and Allison Janney, who plays the press secretary, won for best dramatic actress.
The cast of The West Wing also won the guild's dramatic ensemble honor.
Janney told the audience that she considered quitting once when her acting career wasn't going well. She said she went to a career-counseling office to take an aptitude test to find out what else she might do.
"They told me I would make an excellent systems analyst,'' Janney said. "I still don't know what that is. I'm so proud to be able to say I'm a working actress.''
Sarah Jessica Parker of Sex and the City won for best actress in a TV comedy. Robert Downey Jr. won for best actor in a comedy series for Ally McBeal. Will & Grace won for TV comedy ensemble.
The guild presented its lifetime achievement award to husband-and-wife acting team Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. They have been married and working together for 52 years.
"Marriage is an aspiration, love is an aspiration, peace on earth is an aspiration,'' Dee said. "But if you keep working hard at it, those muscles get stronger.''
