Governors Awards 2011: John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston
Two-time Oscar nominee John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever, 1977; Pulp Fiction, 1994) and wife Kelly Preston (Citizen Ruth, From Dusk Till Dawn) are seen arriving at the 2011 Governors Awards. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ ceremony was held in the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland in Hollywood, on Saturday, Nov. 12.
Veteran actor James Earl Jones (The Great White Hope) was a long-distance Honorary Oscar honoree, as he’s costarring with Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave (Julia, 1977) in Driving Miss Daisy on the London stage. Veteran make-up artist Dick Smith (Taxi Driver, Amadeus) was present to receive his Honorary Oscar.
Television celebrity Oprah Winfrey, a 1985 Best Supporting Actress nominee for Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, was the recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
John Travolta and wife Kelly Preston image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo and husband Michel Hazanavicius.
Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo & Michel Hazanavicius
The Artist screenwriter-director Michel Hazanavicius; his wife Bérénice Bejo; and Jean Dujardin attend the 2011 Governors Awards. Hazanavicius, Bejo, and Cannes Film Festival Best Actor winner Dujardin are all likely nominees for the 2012 Academy Awards.
In The Artist, Jean Dujardin plays a fast-fading silent film star along the lines of John Gilbert – but with the joie de vivre of Douglas Fairbanks. There are also shades of both Fredric March and James Mason in the 1937 and 1954 versions of A Star Is Born, with bits of Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain thrown in.
Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, and Michel Hazanavicius image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Tilda Swinton: Red Carpet fashion statement.
Tilda Swinton
Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning Actress Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton, 2007), a potential Best Actress Oscar 2012 nominee for Lynne Ramsay’s psychological drama We Need to Talk About Kevin, makes her usual fashion statement on the 2011 Governors Awards’ Red Carpet.
Tilda Swinton image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Dustin Lance Black.
Dustin Lance Black
Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk, 2008), who collaborated with Clint Eastwood on J. Edgar, attends the 2011 Governors Awards. Reviews for J. Edgar have been mostly unenthusiastic, but an Academy Award nomination remains a possibility. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as FBI strongman J. Edgar Hoover.
Dustin Lance Black image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Sharon Stone.
Sharon Stone
Oscar-nominated Actress Sharon Stone (Casino, 1995) arrives at the 2011 Governors Awards. Among Stone’s other big-screen credits are Total Recall and Basic Instinct.
Sharon Stone image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Shailene Woodley.
Shailene Woodley
Actress Shailene Woodley on the 2011 Governors Awards’ Red Carpet outside the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland in Hollywood. Woodley is a potential Best Supporting Actress Oscar contender for her performance as George Clooney’s daughter in Alexander Payne’s Hawaii-set comedy-drama The Descendants. Competition in that category, however, is particularly fierce this year.
Shailene Woodley image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Glenn Close: Potential Best Actress Oscar contender at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Governors Awards.
Glenn Close
Five-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close (The World According to Garp, 1982; The Big Chill, 1983; etc.) a likely 2012 Best Actress Oscar contender for her performance as a woman passing for a man in Rodrigo García’s period drama Albert Nobbs, is pictured above arriving at the 2011 Governors Awards.
Glenn Close image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Michael Fassbender and Steve McQueen.
Michael Fassbender and Steve McQueen
Actor Michael Fassbender and filmmaker Steve McQueen arrive on the 2011 Governors Awards’ Red Carpet. Fassbender and McQueen are potential 2012 Oscar contenders for their work on the psychological drama Shame.
Fassbender, in fact, has kept himself busy in 2011. Besides Shame, he was seen as Erik Lensherr a.k.a. Magneto in Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class; as Rochester in Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre; and as Carl Jung in David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method.
Michael Fassbender and Steve McQueen image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Tate Taylor.
Tate Taylor
Tate Taylor, a potential Best Director Academy Award nominee for the socially conscious domestic sleeper hit The Help, arrives at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 2011 Governors Awards, held in the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland in Hollywood on Saturday, Nov. 12.
This year’s honorees were actor James Earl Jones, make-up artist Dick Smith (Taxi Driver, Altered States, Death Becomes Her), and somewhat controversial Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient Oprah Winfrey.
While onstage accepting her award, Winfrey mentioned The Help, a likely Best Picture Oscar contender. The show business magnate said that the movie, which is set in the American South of the 1960s, felt like the story of her family, as both her mother and her grandmother had been maids to Southern white families.
Tate Taylor image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
James Earl Jones – long-distance Honorary Oscar recipient – and Mary J. Blige.
Honorary Oscar recipient James Earl Jones
A Best Actor Academy Award nominee for Martin Ritt’s The Great White Hope (1970) and the booming voice of both Star Wars’ Darth Vader and Mufasa in The Lion King, Honorary Oscar recipient James Earl Jones, 80, had to accept his award – via a pre-taped ceremony – from London, where he is starring opposite Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave (Julia, 1977) in a stage production of Driving Miss Daisy.
“I am gobsmacked at this improbable moment in my life,” Jones remarked. “You cannot be an actor like I am and not have been in some of the worst movies like I have.” (Redgrave, who has also had her share of poor movies – e.g., Bear Island – received her own Academy recognition the following day.)
In James Earl Jones’ honor, Academy president Tom Sherak hopped onstage in Hollywood dressed up as Darth Vader.
James Earl Jones movies
James Earl Jones – like Tate Taylor, born in Mississippi (Jan. 17, 1931, in Arkabutla) – has been featured in more than 70 big-screen productions, mostly in supporting roles, since his 1964 debut in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.
A couple of notable titles in which he was the male lead:
- John Berry’s Harlem-set comedy-drama Claudine (1974), with Jones as a garbage collector unsure about his relationship with a mother (Best Actress Oscar nominee Diahann Carroll) of six living on welfare.
- Joseph Sargent’s The Man (1972), originally to have been a TV movie. Adapted by Rod Serling from a novel by Irving Wallace, the sociopolitical drama stars Jones as – even if by default – the first black president of the United States. In the name supporting cast: Martin Balsam, Lew Ayres, Burgess Meredith, Barbara Rush, and Patric Knowles.
Mary J. Blige and James Earl Jones Governors Awards image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Cary Joji Fukunaga.
Cary Joji Fukunaga
Screenwriter-director Cary Joji Fukunaga (a.k.a. Cary Fukunaga) is pictured above on the 2011 Governors Awards’ Red Carpet. Fukunaga had a prestige “arthouse” hit this year, Jane Eyre, starring Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska. Two years ago, his socially conscious drama Sin Nombre received a good number of critics awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Cary Joji Fukunaga image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
Margaret Avery.
Margaret Avery
Margaret Avery, best known for her performance opposite Whoopi Goldberg in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, attends the 2011 Governors Awards. Avery and Oprah Winfrey were both Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominees for The Color Purple. They lost the Oscar to Anjelica Huston in John Huston’s Prizzi’s Honor. Avery created a stir at the time because of her Oscar ads.
Margaret Avery Governors Awards 2011 Red Carpet image: Matt Petit | © A.M.P.A.S.
“Governors Awards 2011” notes
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (A.M.P.A.S.) website.
*last modified in May 2025.