MOVIES

Lawrence, Day-Lewis win at Screen Actors Guild Awards

Argo builds momentum toward Feb. 24 Oscars

Daniel Day-Lewis accepts the awards for outstanding male actor in a leading role for “Lincoln” at the 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES — The CIA thriller Argo continues to steamroll through awards season, winning the top honor for overall cast performance at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

SAG’s lead-acting honors Sunday went to Jennifer Lawrence won for her role as a troubled widow in a shaky new relationship in the lost-souls romance Silver Linings Playbook and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War epic Lincoln. The supporting film awards Sunday went to Anne Hathaway of Les Miserables and Tommy Lee Jones of Lincoln.

“It occurred to me — it was an actor that murdered Abraham Lincoln,” said Day-Lewis, a solid front-runner to join an exclusive list of three-time acting Oscar winners. “And therefore, somehow it is only so fitting that every now and then an actor tries to bring him back to life again.”

The SAG cast win came a day after Argo claimed the top honor from the Producers Guild of America, whose winner often goes on to claim best picture at the Oscars. Argo was a surprise victor two weeks ago at the Golden Globes, where it won best drama and director for Ben Affleck.

The momentum positions Argo for a rare feat at the Feb. 24 Oscars, where it could become just the fourth film in 85 years to be named best picture without a nomination for its director.

“To me this has nothing to do with me, it has to do with the incredible people who were in this movie,” said Affleck, who also stars in Argo and accepted the SAG prize alongside his cast.

It was a brisk, businesslike, and fairly bland evening as the actors union handed out honors to a predictable lineup of winners who generally had triumphed at earlier Hollywood ceremonies or past SAG shows.

“Now I have this naked statue that means some of you even voted for me, and that is an indescribable feeling,” Silver Linings star Lawrence said, telling the crowd she got her SAG card at age 14 by filming a spot for MTV.

Hathaway won for her role as a doomed single mother forced into prostitution in the adaptation of the stage musical based on Victor Hugo’s epic novel.

Jones, who was not at the show, won for his turn as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens in the Civil War epic.