Backstage Report: Anybody Here? Anybody...?

By Joal Ryan Jan 28, 2008 4:07 AMTags
Daniel Day-LewisKevork Djansezian/AP photo

6:49 p.m.:  Well, let's see. Alec Baldwin won, but didn't show. Queen Latifah won, but didn't show. Kevin Kline won, but didn't show.

6:50 p.m.:  Just to refresh my memory: The actors were allowed to come to the SAGs, right?

6:57 p.m.:  The actual SAG Award, I am presently reminded, is called the Actor, meaning if Jenna Fischer's estimate was correct, it tips the scales about as heavily as a lowercase actress.

7:10 p.m.:  The pressroom has been bereft of any Actors or actors for about an hour now.

7:11 p.m.:  So, as I was telling the ghost of Lillian Gish...

7:16 p.m.:  Leave it to Daniel Day-Lewis to interrupt my story.

7:17 p.m.:  Day-Lewis, who devoted a good deal of his acceptance speech to Heath Ledger, tells us he never met the actor. "[But] I thought he was beautiful," he says. "I had a very strong feeling I would have liked him as a man."

7:18 p.m.:  It sounds like the decision to talk about Ledger on stage wasn't a decision at all for Day-Lewis. "It's all I was thinking about for the past few days," he says.

7:19 p.m.:  For a private-favoring public figure, Day-Lewis is gamely fielding questions, including ones about why he doesn't like to field questions about his work. ("It seems kind of self-defeating to just keep talking about it," he says.)

7:28 p.m.:  Sayeth the SAG Awards flack: "We're told the cast of No Country for Old Men will not be doing interviews."

7:29 p.m.:  Guess who probably just ran into Day-Lewis in the lobby?