“Hidden Figures” was the surprise best film ensemble winner at Sunday’s (January 29) Screen Actors Guild awards, a show overshadowed by politics as stars slammed U.S. President Donald Trump for restricting entry for travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations.
Emma Stone, winning best actress for her role in musical romance “La La Land,” praised her fellow actors for taking a stand.
“In a time like this when so many horrible things are happening, where so many horrific things are happening, it is so special to be part of a group of people who want to reflect what is happening back to the world and to make people happy. I’m paraphrasing what I said on stage … and maybe change perspectives or help people feel less alone and that’s something that has given me a lot of happiness thinking about getting to be even just like one person in the cog of all of these actors and artists that care and obviously we’re also citizens of this planet and of this country or not of this country and either way it doesn’t matter,” Stone told reporters backstage.
“We have to speak up against injustice and we have to kick some ass,” she added.
Denzel Washington, who won best actor for his role in “Fences,” based on August Wilson’s award-winning stage play about blue-collar African-Americans, called for unity.
“You know this is what I think, I think we as Americans better learn to unite. I think we as Americans need to put our elected officials feet to the fire and demand that they work together or they won’t get back in office. You know this age we live in, this accelerated information age, we’re getting further and further apart. We’re not getting together, we’re getting further and further apart,” he said.
Lily Tomlin, who received a life achievement award at Sunday’s awards show warned of the lessons of history.
“I don’t want to make this comparison and I’m not making it in any way but the Nazis they changed the laws that didn’t agree with them, they just changed them and they could do whatever they wanted. Now that was over a period of time so I think we have to be vigilant and stop certain behaviors so that someone who has not thought something through doesn’t get too far in the process,” she said.
“Hidden Figures,” the true story of three black female mathematicians during the 1960s space race, ousted awards front-runners “Manchester By the Sea” and “Moonlight” to claim the night’s top prize.
“I think the major role of an artist is to use the art that God gave you to touch and change lives because he put us here and we all look different for a reason because we’re here to get along and we have to figure it out so we better damn well figure it out because no one group is better than the other. We’re all humans here to get a long and make this big world go around,” star Taraji P. Henson said.
The SAG awards honored many actors of color in a year when diversity in Hollywood has been in the spotlight. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced seven Oscar nominees of color among its acting categories this month after two years when only white actors were nominated, prompting the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.
“Response to Oscars so white? No I think that every nominee from Naomie Harris to Octavia Spencer to ‘Hidden Figures’ to ‘Fences’ to ‘Moonlight’ to Mahershala Ali are there because they deserve to be there. They’re not there because of the color of their skin,” said Viola Davis, who won best supporting actress for ‘Fences.’
Voted for by about 120,000 U.S. actors, the two-hour televised SAG awards show often anoints top Academy Award winners since actors comprise the largest body within Oscar voters.
