‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ wins at Golden Globes in upset
Heavily favored ‘A Star Is Born,’ Lady Gaga miss out on awards
NEW YORK — In a Golden Globes chock full of upsets, the Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” took best picture, drama, over Bradley Cooper’s heavily favored “A Star is Born” and Glenn Close bested Lady Gaga for best actress.
Few winners were seen as more certain than Lady Gaga as best actress in a drama at Sunday’s ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. But veteran actress Close pulled off the shocker for her performance in “The Wife,” as the spouse of a Nobel Prizewinning author. Close said she was thinking of her mother, “who really sublimated herself to my father for her whole life.”
Minutes later, the surprise was even greater when “Bohemian Rhapsody” won the night’s top award, shortly after Rami Malek won best actor for his prosthetic teeth-aided performance as Mercury.
“Thank you to Freddie Mercury for giving me the joy of a lifetime,” said Malek. “This is for you, gorgeous.”
Politics were largely absent from the ceremony before Christian Bale took the stage for winning best actor in a musical or comedy for his lead performance in Adam McKay’s “Vice.”
“What do you think? Mitch McConnell next?” joked the Welshborn actor, referring to the Senate’s majority leader. “Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration for this role.”
Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg opened the Globes, put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, on a note of congeniality, including a mock roast of attendees and a string of jokes that playfully commented on critiques of Hollywood.
Oh later won for her performance on the BBC America drama series “Killing Eve.
Mahershala Ali won best supporting actor for “Green Book.” Oscar nomination voting begins today, and the biggest boost went to “Green Book,” Peter Farrelly’s interracial road trip through the early ’60s Deep South, which has struggled to catch on at the box office while coming under substantial criticism for relying on racial tropes. It won best film, comedy or musical, and best screenplay.
As expected, Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt won best song for the signature tune from “A Star Is Born,” the film most expected to dominate the Globes.
Though the Globes are put on by foreign journalists, they don’t including foreign language films in their two best picture categories (for drama and musical/comedy). That left Netflix’s Oscar hopeful, Alfonso Cuaron’s memory-drenched masterwork “Roma” out of the top category. Cuaron still won as best director and the Mexican-born filmmaker’s movie won best foreign language film.
Netflix also won numerous awards for the series “The Kominsky Method,” which won both best actor in a comedy series for Michael Douglas (he dedicated the honor to this 102-year-old father, Kirk Douglas) and for best comedy series over favored nominees like “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (whose star, Rachel Brosnahan still won) and “Barry.”
Olivia Colman, expected to be Lady Gaga’s stiffest competition when the two presumably go headto-head at the Oscars, won best actress in a comedy/musical for her Queen Anne in the royal romp “The Favourite.”
Best supporting actress in a motion picture went to the Oscar front-runner Regina King for her matriarch of Barry Jenkins’ James Baldwin adaptation “If Beale Street Could Talk.”
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” won for best animated film. Ryan Murphy’s “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” won for both best limited series and Darren Criss’ lead performance.
For its sixth and final season, FX’s “The Americans” took best drama series over shows like Amazon’s conspiracy thriller “Homecoming” and Oh’s “Killing Eve.” Richard Madden, the breakout star of the terrorism suspense series “Bodyguard,” won best actor in a drama series. Ben Wishaw took best supporting actor in a limited series for “A Very English Scandal.”
The press association typically likes having first crack at series that weren’t eligible for the prior Emmys. They did this year in not just “The Kominsky Method” and “Bodyguard” but also the Showtime prison drama “Escape at Dannemora.” Its star, Patricia Arquette, won for best actress in a limited series.
Jeff Bridges received the Globes’ honorary Cecil B. DeMille Award. In remarks about everything from Michael Cimino to Buckminster Fuller and, of course, to his “Big Lebowski” character the Dude, Bridges compared his life to a great game of tag. “We’ve all been tagged,” said Bridges. “We’re alive.” He ended by “tagging” everyone watching. “We can turn this ship in the way we want to go, man,” said Bridges.