James Earl Jones was honored Sunday at the Screen Actors Guild Awards with the its lifetime-achievement award for a career that included roles in “Dr. Strangelove,” “Field of Dreams,” “Cry, the Beloved Country” and “The Man,” in which he played the first black U.S. president.
The ceremony featured clips highlighting Jones’ rumbling bass voice as the mouthpiece of “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader, the noble patriarch in “The Lion King,” even cable news with his “This is CNN” announcements.
“I want to thank you for all the work that you do,” Jones told the audience, quoting the Book of Genesis on how God breathed life into man. “I don’t mean to embarrass anybody by comparing the actor to God, but once we’ve taken the role, we have a similar responsibility to breathe life into that role, and only the actor can do that.”
Meryl Streep of the Roman Catholic drama “Doubt” and Sean Penn of the Harvey Milk film biography “Milk” won lead-acting honors.
The prize for overall cast went to the rags-to-riches saga “Slumdog Millionaire,” while Heath Ledger of the Batman blockbuster “The Dark Knight” and Kate Winslet of the Holocaust-themed drama “The Reader” took supporting honors.
“Can I just say there is no such thing as the best actress, you know? There is no such thing as the greatest living actress,” said Streep, the Academy Awards record-holder with 15 acting nominations, including one for “Doubt,” in which she plays an old-school nun in a war of wills with a priest.
“I am in a position where I have secret information, that I know this to be true,” she said. “I am so in awe of the work of the women this year – nominated, not nominated – so proud of us girls. And everybody wins when we get parts like this.”
The honors raise winners’ prospects to take home Hollywood’s big prizes at the Academy Awards on Feb. 22.
Two-time Oscar winner Streep’s best-actress competitors this time will include Winslet, who was nominated by Oscar voters in that category rather than the supporting one for “The Reader.”
Oscar winner Penn played gay-rights political pioneer Milk but said the film had a universal theme.
“As actors, we don’t play gay, straight. We don’t play any of these kinds of people. We play human beings, and this movie is something that all of us involved are so proud of,” Penn said. “This is a story about equal rights for all human beings.”
A low-budgeted film with a cast of unknowns, “Slumdog Millionaire” continued to live up to its story line about a poor boy who rises from squalor on the streets of Mumbai to find love, fame and fortune as a champion on India’s version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
“Slumdog Millionaire” dominated the Golden Globes and has 10 Oscar nominations, including best picture.
Co-star Anil Kapoor, accepting on behalf of the “Slumdog” cast, dedicated the award to the children in the cast.
“They deserve this award. They set our performances,” he said. “It’s the children who’ve done it, not us.”
Ledger’s supporting-actor prize for his sociopathic reinvention of Batman bad guy the Joker put the late actor a step closer to becoming just the second performer to win a posthumous Academy Award. The first was Peter Finch, the best-actor recipient for 1976’s “Network.”
The award was accepted by “The Dark Knight” co-star Gary Oldman.
“I’m quite emotional,” Oldman said. “It is a great honor to be asked to accept this on behalf of Heath. He was an extraordinary young man with an extraordinary talent, and it is wonderful that you have acknowledged that and honored that talent tonight.”
