Christopher Plummer, Octavia Spencer nab SAG awards

LOS ANGELES – Veteran Canadian actor Christopher Plummer won the award for best supporting actor Sunday at the Screen Actors Guild, one of the key preludes to the Oscars next month.

The Academy Awards, the culmination of the Hollywood awards season, will be held on February 26.

Plummer, 82, won for “Beginners,” where he plays the role of a man who comes to terms with his homosexuality late in life.

The 18th SAG ceremony got under way in Los Angeles with a star-studded group in attendance including nominees George Clooney, Jean Dujardin, Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams and Brad Pitt, who was accompanied by his companion, Angelina Jolie.

Octavia Spencer won for best female supporting actress in “The Help,” based on a book depicting the point of view of a black maid working for a white family in the 1960s.

Spencer outdid Argentine-born French actress Berenice Bejo, of the silent film “The Artist.” The two will meet and compete again in the same category at the Oscars.

In the overall cast performance category, the SAG’s top honor, the comedy “Bridesmaids” is up against family drama “The Descendants”, with George Clooney, and Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.”

The awards are seen as a key indicator of the Academy Awards which are held February 26.

In the television category, the comedy “Modern Family” won the SAG award for best cast in a comedy.

Colombian bombshell Sofia Vergara, who was nominated for her role as Gloria in “Modern Family,” walked away empty-handed as veteran Betty White, 90, took the award for her role in the comedy “Hot in Cleveland.”

It was not all bad news for “Modern Family,” however. It took the best comedy cast defeating “Glee”, “The Big Bang Theory”, “30 Rock” and “The Office.”

Saturday, French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius won the top honor from the Directors Guild of America for “The Artist,” an award that has traditionally been a strong indicator of Oscar glory.

Hazanavicius captured the DGA’s outstanding achievement in feature film award, beating out competition from Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese for “Midnight in Paris” and “Hugo” respectively, and David Fincher and Alexander Payne for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Descendants.”

“The Artist” had already won the top prize from the Producers Guild of America (PGA) earlier this month — another key pre-Oscar bellwether — and picked up three Golden Globes including best picture on January 15.

The film, a tribute to the silent movie era in which a non-speaking star battles to save his career after it is torpedoed by the arrival of the “talkies,” is up for 10 Oscars, including best picture and best director.