Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland (top); Helen Mirren in The Queen (bottom)
The 2007 SAG Award winners were announced on Sunday, Jan. 28.
Pretty much everybody that was expected to win won, from Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker to Helen Mirren and Jeremy Irons. (Mirren I won for The Queen; Mirren II for the TV production Queen Elizabeth I.)
Little Miss Sunshine was the equally unsurprising best ensemble winner. Following on the heels of its Producers Guild Award victory, the low-budget feel-good comedy of the year is now considered the front-runner for the 2007 Academy Awards.
The problem with that prediction, however, is that Little Miss Sunshine failed to get a best direction nod for Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The last movie to win a best film Oscar without having been nominated in the best direction category was Bruce Beresford's Driving Miss Daisy seventeen years ago. Even though Little Miss Sunshine may indeed be on its way to best film Oscar honors, it still faces strong competition on all fronts.
"If my life is any guide," SAG Life Achievement winner Julie Andrews said, "the chances are if you work very hard, a piece of good fortune will pass your way, but you'd better be ready for it. So do your homework."
Well-intentioned "hard work" clichés aside, Andrews' life is surely no guide to the hundreds of thousands of actors the world over who will never have anything even remotely resembling My Fair Lady (stage) or Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music (screen) come their way. But at 71, she does look and sound just fine.
Julie Andrews Photo: Andrew Eccles / SAG