SAG AWARDS ‘Birdman’ cast wins; Redmayne tops Keaton

Associated Press

The backstage farce “Birdman” topped the 21st annual Screen Actors Guild Award, winning best ensemble cast, even though its star, Michael Keaton, was upset by Eddie Redmayne in the most outstanding actor category.

Keaton led the “Birdman” cast, including Emma Stone, Edward Norton and Zach Galifianakis, in accepting the top honor from the acting guild, calling the profession “the ultimate team sport.”

“Every time I turned around, I ran into another tremendous actor,” said Keaton.

Oscar favorites Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette and J.K. Simmons cemented their front-runner status in a ceremony that often serves as a kind of preview to the Academy Awards. But Redmayne’s win for his performance as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything” was a slight surprise, especially since Keaton’s performance as an egotistical, paranoid Hollywood has-been trying to mount a comeback on Broadway is in many ways an ode to acting.

Redmayne dedicated his SAG award — “this very wonderful skinny man,” he said looking down at his blue statuette — to sufferers and victims of ALS.

Moore, widely considered the best-actress favorite, won most outstanding supporting actress for “Still Alice,” in which she plays an academic with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Accepting the award for most outstanding supporting actor for his performance as a domineering jazz teacher in “Whiplash,” Simmons thanked all 49 actors who appear in the drama.

“All of us actors are supporting actors,” said Simmons, a veteran character actor. “Each of us is essential, completely crucial to the story because if there’s one false moment, the train comes off the rails.”

“Boyhood” star Patricia Arquette added the latest in a string of awards Sunday, taking the supporting actress honor for her performance, filmed over the course of 12 years.

“I can’t tell you what this means to me,” said Arquette. “I’m a fourth-generation actor. My family has been committed to acting for over a century, through feast or famine.”

Because actors make up the largest portion of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the SAG Awards are also considered one of the most telling Oscar previews. Individually acting winners usually mirror each other exactly, or very nearly.

Last year, the top four winners — Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Lupita Nyong’o, Jared Leto — all went on to win Academy Awards after first scooping up SAG awards.

Debbie Reynolds, the “Singin’ in the Rain” star, was honored with the SAG lifetime achievement award, which her daughter, Carrie Fisher, presented. The 82-year-old Reynolds embarrassed Fischer with a story, recalling that her bun in the famous musical led her to warn her daughter ahead of playing Princess Leia in “Star Wars.”

“I said, ‘Well, Carrie, be careful of any weird hairdos,”’ said Reynolds. “So luckily George gave her two buns.”