8th ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS®
ACTOR® RECIPIENTS

IAN McKELLEN OPENING SPEECH:

Good evening. Good evening, I am a professional actor and I have been for 40 years now. I wasn’t fit for anything else, frankly. And I’ve generously been given just a moment or two to talk about acting.

Well, William Shakespeare, of course, put it well: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts.”

And if you are not a member of the Screen Actors Guild and you don’t think of yourself as a player or as an actor – well, didn’t you choose what costume or clothes you were going to wear this evening, whether you’re here or at home? And tomorrow morning your “costume” will be something different, depending on what scenes you intend to take
part in during the day.

Your whole demeanor will adapt. You know, think of the word “Good morning.” First thing you say, “Good morning,” that’s to the person you wake up next to. Little bit later in the day, you’re on the phone, “Good Morning” --agent, of course. [laughter] And then if you’re lucky, you might actually meet a casting director (fawning on knees) “Good Morning.” [laughter] This human ability to fit into a variety of situations at home, at work, at play, that’s the basis of professional acting – only doing what comes naturally to everyone.

Actors interpret other people’s dreams. And I doubt I shall ever tire of the fascinating pleasure of inhabiting a character’s life. It feels to me a little like being a craftsman, you know, learning throughout a career how to act better – like a carpenter aspires one day to make a perfect chair. And screen actors join together in a craft guild, and on occasions like this, discover a common cause from our individual experience of acting.

And tonight the Screen Actors Guild looks inward on its craft to honor what, for want of a better word, we call “the best” – or just good examples of work that aims to entrance the eye, to delight the ear and to stimulate the mind -- and to glory in the certainty that men and women -- all of us merely players -- have, each of us, a unique story worth telling.
We actors can’t do it alone, of course – which is why tonight we also celebrate the achievement of ensembles, directors, other colleagues we work with. It should make for an evening of emotion and fun.

And now my four favorite words: “On with the show!”

Russell Crowe's Speech: A Beautiful Mind

"Thanks very much, folks.You know, I’m a storyteller. We are storytellers. And ours is an ancient tradition, contemporized by the cinema and the capturing of light. And we should all be very proud of our place in society. On any given night, millions of people across the world buy a ticket for adventures that only we as storytellers can provide. We release burdens, we galvanize emotions, we make people laugh, we make people talk over breakfast.

This is a great job and I want to encourage every one of you in this room to give everything you can to the story. God bless narrative. God bless originality. Good night."

Edited for space consideration- just kidding! Hahhhahhaa.

More from the media room later:

On A Beautiful Mind:

"I am really pleased that the movies gotten a lot of the attention it's gotten. I'm really pleased I'm in the film that Ron Howard got his first Oscar nomination for. Um, I think all, in terms of the cast, in terms of the studios that are involved, everybody's really appreciative of the movie. Not only has it received critical praise, but also from our peers, DGA, PGA and, ah, the academy. Um, so everything else after that…we've just enjoyed it. I don't think we're sweating it. We're not, ah you know, desperate about it by any means. We felt while we were doing the movie... …on a daily basis... we felt we were doing something really important…"

Also: " We just passed the $140 million mark at the box office — a movie about a schizophrenic mathematician, that says something to me about the intelligence of audiences."

And Russell in an Ode to Opie: "It's a thorny story. It's a deep story. But it's a really well crafted movie and Ron's done a fantastic job."

 

Halle Berry's Speech: Monster's Ball

Oh, thank you so much. I am so proud to be an actor, I can’t tell you. It's saved my life. Acting has enriched my life, and it has made me learn so much about life, and I’m so proud to be here. Thank you so much to the actors for choosing me this year. Thank you. [cheers and applause]

I want to thank the entire cast. Any actress knows that she is only as good as the cast that surrounds her. I want to thank Coronji Calhoun, a first time acting job; Sean Combs; Heath Ledger; and especially Peter Boyle and Billy Bob Thornton. [applause] They are so good, and every single day they forced me to grow, to learn, and to be better at the craft of acting. And this is so much as much theirs as it is mine.

I want to thank our fearless leader: our director, Marc Forster, who was amazing, and who I loved and I trusted. [applause] And he guided me through this – this work. And Ivana Chubbuck, who helped me get to the heart of who this woman was; my manager, Vincent Cirrincione; CAA; our producer, Lee Daniels; and my life partner, Eric.

Thank you so much for----encouraging me to take this risk. And it has paid off big time tonight! Thank you so much!

ED ASNER LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

ASNER: Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom. He’s so big. It’s really tough talking to his armpit, but I love him.

Charlie, my son, this thing is heavier than you are. [laughter] And this thing almost makes one forget one’s mortality. But as Robert Redford said in “The Candidate,” when he won the election, “What do we do now?”

How grateful I am to my peers who’ve always been there, and particularly to the peers of S.A.G., who chose me for this award. Here’s to all the crews, casting directors, directors, writers, producers, and of course, all those people of good taste who liked my work, and made this award possible.

I thank God I’m no longer young enough to know everything. But one of the things I do know is that there are many countries in the world where the life achievement award is just that: achieving life. I’m so glad I won the American life achievement award, which to me means living with purpose and passion.

I love acting, being an actor, and in youth I wandered from play to play as if in a dream. And wonder of wonders, I woke up and found myself to be an actor. Well, actually, it was quite easy. Because firstly, I stunk as a cabdriver. And secondly, I was babied and cushioned all along the way by my families, my friends, those peers again and my country -- my country, which forever instills in us the desire to do what we wish, to be what we wish. Our country, which tells us, “Try it, you’ll like it,” or “Why not? What are they going to do, shoot you?” Not here.

Not ever.

And so if I ended up being a decent actor, it’s because I didn’t have to worry about getting shot. Those there were some minor critics who recommended it.

I pray that we retain that spirit of trying, of experimenting, of challenging, of keeping America fresh, innovative, a work in progress, and that we promise ourselves, above all, to reject the sacrifice of principle for playing it safe. Let’s keep turning those lousy cabdrivers into decent actors, and never, never, never regret saying, “Why not? What are they going to do, shoot you?”

Thank you.

Screen Actors Guild 38th Annual Life Achievement Award

Edward Asner

THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES