Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line (top); Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener in Capote; Sandra Bullock in Crash
Among the winners of the 2006 Actor statuettes, the Screen Actors Guild awards, were:
- Best actress Reese Witherspoon for playing country singer June Carter in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line
- Best actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, for playing another real-life character, Truman Capote
- Best (faux) supporting actress Rachel Weisz for her tragic human-rights fighter in The Constant Gardener (Weisz is actually a lead character in the political drama, and is being recognized as such in Britain)
- Best supporting actor Paul Giamatti for the box-office disappointment Cinderella Man
- The ethnically conscious melodrama Crash, for its all-star cast, including Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Terrence Howard, Thandie Newton, and Ryan Phillippe
Felicity Huffman, nominated for her outstanding gender-bending performance in Transamerica, lost the award for best actress in a motion picture to Witherspoon but did take home the Actor for best actress in a TV comedy series (Desperate Housewives), while Shirley Temple, the tap-dancing brat of numerous Fox films of the 1930s, won the Life Achievement Award.
Some may say that SAG's selection of Crash as best cast in a motion picture, a category often — and erroneously — perceived as the guild's "best picture" equivalent, somehow lessens the chances for Brokeback Mountain to win this year's best picture Oscar. That is hardly true.
SAG's best cast award is named so for a reason, and Crash is much more of an ensemble piece — with about fifteen performers supporting one another — than Brokeback Mountain, which basically focuses on the characters played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Also, the SAG best cast award has gone to other ensemble pieces, such as Gosford Park, Traffic, The Full Monty, and last year's Sideways, that eventually failed to win the Academy Award for best picture.