Golden Globes: Cate Blanchett wins best actress for role in Blue Jasmine
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Version 0 of 1. Australian actor Cate Blanchett has added to her list of accolades by winning a Golden Globe award for her performance in the Woody Allen film Blue Jasmine. On a star-studded night in Los Angeles, Blanchett beat competition from Emma Thompson to land the prize for best female lead. She is now a hot favourite to win her second Oscar at the Academy Awards in March for her performance as a New York socialite who falls on hard times and is forced to live with her sister in San Francisco. Dressed in a black lace Armani Prive gown which had fashion writers salivating, Blanchett admitted to having "downed a few vodkas" while waiting to hear if she had won her third Golden Globe. She also paid tribute to her veteran director Allen, who also received the Cecil B DeMille award for lifetime achievement at the Globes. Allen "writes and directs these things with such alarming regularity that we almost take him for granted," she said. "Then people like me are in his slipstream picking up these heavy things that make biceps look great," she said. Another big winner was British director Steve McQueen, whose film 12 Years a Slave about a free man kidnapped into slavery was voted the year's best drama by the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. "Little bit in shock," McQueen said as he accepted the award. "I wasn't expecting it." David O Russell's con-artist caper American Hustle won the comedy category, while Matthew McConaughey triumphed for best drama actor in Dallas Buyers Club. The Wolf of Wall Street star Leonardo DiCaprio and Amy Adams from American Hustle won the equivalent awards in the musical/comedy category. Best director went to Mexican Alfonso Cuarón for spectacular 3D space drama Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts stranded in orbit after a space station accident. On the small screen, cult series Breaking Bad took the best drama prize and best drama actor for Bryan Cranston, while best TV movie or mini-series went to Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra. There was a near disaster just hours before the show began, when a sprinkler malfunctioned and soaked a large part of the red carpet where the stars were due to arrive at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The first prize of the night went to Hunger Games star Jennifer Lawrence for her supporting role in American Hustle, inspired by an FBI sting operation in the 1970s known as ABSCAM. The Oscar-winning 23-year-old said she hopes to do more than act. "I would love to direct one day, but I don't want to suck. I want to keep learning," she told reporters backstage. Jared Leto took best supporting actor for his portrayal of a transgender woman suffering from AIDS in Dallas Buyers Club. Based on a true story, its stars McConaughey as an AIDS sufferer who smuggles drugs for other patients to treat the HIV virus in the early days of the disease in the 1980s. Best foreign film went to Italian Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty defeating the Cannes-winning Blue is the Warmest Color as well as The Hunt, The Past and The Wind Rises. Disney's musical fairy tale adaptation Frozen won the Golden Globe for best animated film, beating The Croods and Despicable Me 2. The Globes are run by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and voted on by barely 80 journalists – in contrast to the Oscars, chosen by 6,000 members of the prestigious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. American Hustle and 12 Years a Slave have had a series of boosts in recent weeks, winning nominations from the Producers Guild of America and the Directors Guild of America. In the last 10 years, all but one of the winners of the Directors Guild top prize went on to win the best director Oscar. 12 Years a Slave also topped nominations for the Screen Actors Guild awards, announced last month. Nominations for the Oscars will be announced on Thursday. The Academy Awards will be held on March 2. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |