Highlights from the SAG Awards where quotThe Helpquot takes the top prize

>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=yQrrXwkGT3Q

(30 Jan 2012) SAG AWARDS HIGHLIGHTS • The period drama The Help won three prizes on Sunday at the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which were held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Among the film's honors were the best actress award for Viola Davis and best supporting actress for Octavia Spencer. Davis and Spencer won as black maids going public with uneasy truths about their white employers in 1960s Mississippi. The film also took the best cast in a motion picture award, which is the guild's equivalent of a best-picture prize. • Jean Dujardin won the lead-actor honor for The Artist as a silent-film superstar whose career crumbles when the sound era arrives. Christopher Plummer won for supporting actor as an elderly father who comes out as gay in Beginners. The wins boost the actors' prospects for the same honors at the Feb. 26 Academy Awards. • Plummer would become the oldest actor ever to win an Oscar at age 82, two years older than Jessica Tandy when she won best actress for Driving Miss Daisy. • Spencer, a veteran actress who had toiled in small TV and movie parts previously, had a breakout role in The Help as a brassy maid whose mouth continually gets her into trouble. She credited Help costar and acting legend Cicely Tyson as her inspiration. • On the television side, comedy series awards went to Modern Family for best ensemble; drama series went to Boardwalk Empire. • The winners at the SAG ceremony typically go on to earn Oscars. All four acting recipients at SAG last year later took home Oscars -- Colin Firth for The King's Speech, Natalie Portman for Black Swan and Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for The Fighter. • The same generally holds true for the weekend's other big Hollywood honors, the Directors Guild of America Awards, where Michel Hazanavicius won the feature-film prize Saturday for The Artist. The Directors Guild winner has gone on to earn the best-director Oscar 57 times in the 63-year history of the union's awards show. • The guild's ensemble prize, considered the ceremony's equivalent of a best-picture honor, has a spotty record at predicting what will win the top award at the Oscars. • While The King's Speech won both honors a year ago, the SAG cast recipient has gone on to claim the top Oscar only eight times in the 16 years since the guild added the category. Though The Help won the ensemble prize this time, The Artist and George Clooney's family drama The Descendants are considered stronger contenders for the best-picture Oscar. • • Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork • Twitter: / ap_archive • Facebook: / aparchives • Instagram: / apnews • • • You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...

#############################

New on site