Ron Gilbert

Last night I attended the SAG-AFTRA awards and was very happy with the choices made, in particular , Jennifer Lawrence in winning best actress for her performance in the motion picture, Silver Linings Playbook.She auditioned on Skype for the director and is a major talent at 22. Tommy Lee Jones won best supporting actor for Lincoln which was well deserved. Robert DeNiro was also nominated but missed out which in a way made me happy because he has not done his best work in years.His roles in Raging  Bull ,The Godfather 2 and Taxi Driver were brilliant but in the last few years he has made more money doing comedy roles. Just because he squeezed out a tear in his scene with Bradley Cooper was not an award winning moment. Bradley Cooper is at a high point in his career but he needs to dig deeper into his work. Joaquin Phoenix is a true example of an Actors Studio method actor and goes to the depths of his character. He is not looking for an award which is what this industry is all about.His performance in The Master earned him an Oscar nomination as best actor even though he did not launch a campaign. The red carpet is considered the magic carpet to stardom. What you must realize is that the amount of voters for all these award shows are not so high.The Golden Globes has under 100 voters,The Oscar voters are 5700,SAG-AFTRA Awards has about 150,000 member or more but not all of them vote. These are approximations but they can give you an idea of how the award world works. So last night, Daniel Day Lewis won best actor in Lincoln over Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables,who is still my choice for best actor at the Oscars. Anne Hathaway won best supporting actress for her emotional performance in Les Miserables and is mine and the Oscar favorite.The big surprise of the night was the winner of the  ensemble cast of Argo in a motion picture which was my favorite film and Ben Affleck deserved this win. I thought that Les Miserables might take it or even Silver Linings Playbook but the SAG-AFTRA members agreed with me. Your opinion of whom you think should win an award is your choice but do not always be influenced by critics because that is their view and not yours.  The choices for winners are just favorites at that time, which is what the award winners should be called. Some actors have won these awards then their career took a nose dive after 1 or 2 more films.Acting is a craft and if you love it you  will continue until the day you die because you love going to work unlike most people who do not love their work. So just be inspired and continue and you will make it to  the Oscars red carpet.