BEHIND THE SCENES
While actors are accustomed to being on camera, not every starry moment at the Screen Actors Guild Awards makes the screen. Sandy Cohen takes a look at some of the celebrity exchanges that took place off-camera.
An emotional victory
First, Sterling K. Brown was jumping for joy. Then he couldn’t stop crying. Brown was a double winner at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, taking acting honours for his performance in This Is Us and sharing in the show’s ensemble award. Brown jumped up and down in the Shrine Auditorium ballroom when the NBC drama was announced as the ensemble winner, but by the time he came offstage after co-star Milo Ventimiglia’s acceptance speech, he was in tears. Brown dabbed at his eyes with a tissue as his castmates congratulated each other off-camera. At times he appeared to be sobbing. Meanwhile, co-star Chrissy Metz was singing a little ditty and dancing around. “We did it guys!” she said. “This is exciting! I’m excited!”
Sympathy for Tonya
Allison Janney revealed her secret for playing Tonya Harding’s abusive mother in I, Tonya. After winning the Screen Actors Guild award for her performance in the film, the actress said that when she had to say cruel things to Harding’s character, Janney would pretend she was saying them to herself. “We all know our inner critics, our inner voices where we’re the meanest to ourselves, and I would sometimes imagine me talking to myself when I had to say something to (co-star) Margot (Robbie),” Janney said.
Seat-fillers and pizza
Inside the Shrine Auditorium, where the SAG Awards are presented, a line of seat fillers stood against a black curtain, waiting for their chance to sit with the stars. While commercials play during the telecast, dinner music plays in the ballroom. That’s when the actors squeezed around to mingle. Frances McDormand hugged a whole group of people, Lupita Nyong’o posed for a selfie and Olivia Munn chatted to Veep star Tony Hale. And mysteriously, a dolly loaded up with about 30 pizzas passed through the ballroom and out into the hallway, leaving guests curious as to their destination.
Love for Julia
Julia Louis-Dreyfus was on the minds of the cast of Veep after their win for ensemble in a comedy series. Timothy Simons said Louis-Dreyfus has been in good spirits during her fight with cancer. “She’s incredible. She’s uniquely able to combat something like this.” Tony Hale said she couldn’t be more generous as a co-worker. “She sets the tone and she has just set a tone for everybody where we’re all part of a team,” he said. “Nobody’s walking on eggshells ... She has no arrogance, no entitlement.” Louis-Dreyfus is set to return to Veep in August, her co-star Matt Walsh told Entertainment Weekly.
Party time
At the after-party of the SAG Awards, Robert De Niro held court on a couch in the centre of the room and looked deep in conversation as machines billowed smoke around him and lights danced from the ceiling. Other stars treated the couches more like a dance floor. Allison Williams started grooving to The Weeknd’s I Feel It, as her Get Out co-stars mingled. Mary J. Blige moved to No Church in the Wild by Kanye West and Jay-Z as she munched on a crab leg. The cast from Orange Is the New Black mixed with the mostly female cast of GLOW, spinning each other to Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got To Do With It and Michael Jackson’s Rock With You, as they mouthed the words.