58th Annual Golden Globe Awards Results and Commentary (2001)
©HFPA
- Date of Ceremony: Sunday, January 21, 2001
- For films released in: 2000
Sunday January 21st, 2001: Welcome to our live coverage of the 58th Annual Golden Globe Awards. The Golden Globes are presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and honor the best performances in both film and television. The nominations for the awards were announced on Thursday, December 21, 2000.
It’s 8pm and we’re underway. Let’s hope that the ceremony doesn’t get hit by the rolling blackouts that have been affecting California. If that happens, we’re making the winners up.
Angelina Jolie started off the show by announcing the winner for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. The winner is Benicio Del Toro for Traffic. He said he felt very lucky and felt that the other nominees might want to ask for a recount.
The Soprano’s James Gandolfini and Edie Falco then presented the award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy. The winner is Kelsey Grammer for his great work in Frasier. He made a short speech saying that Frasier deserved every award it has ever received. Without slowing down for a breath we leap into the Best Actress in a TV Comedy. For the second year in a row, Sarah Jessica Parker took the Globe home. She said she she was unprepared for her speech but managed to thank all of the crew, drivers, agents and family she could. She’s great.
Moving right along, Tom Cruise came out to introduce the winner for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture. He actually ripped the envelope before reading the nominees, so he quickly fixed that and then announced that Kate Hudson was the winner. She thanked her co-star Frances McDormand for being such an inspiration.
Phew! Our first break. Fast paced so far.
George Clooney was the next presenter. He was there to introduce the clip for the Best Drama nominated Traffic. Since his friend and business partner Steven Soderbergh is nominated for directing both Traffic and Erin Brockovich, he joked that even if he wins, he loses.
Bill Paxton and Jamie Lee Curtis were the next presenters. They mentioned that second generation performers are all the rage (Goldie Hawn/Kate Hudson, Henry Fonda/Peter Fonda, Jon Voight/Angelina Jolie). With that they introduced Miss Golden Globe, Jane Seymour’s daughter Katie Flynn. They then went on to give out the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a TV Movie/Mini-Series to Judi Dench, who was unable to attend. Moving right along, they then gave out the Best Actor in a TV Movie/Mini-Series to Brian Dennehy for Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Dennehy joked that the movie actors had much better tans than his TV peers.
The next category, Best TV Series Musical or Comedy, was presented by Billy Campbell and Patricia Heaton. The winner was Sex and the City. It took a while for the assembled cast and production staff to make it to the stage.
Greg Kinnear and Reese Witherspoon were up next for Best TV Movie or Mini-series. The winner was the James Woods vehicle Dirty Pictures.
Vince Vaughn and Globe winner Sarah Jessica Parker were up next to present the award for Best Actor, TV Series Drama. The winner in this tight race was Martin Sheen for his brilliant work as the President in West Wing. He was the second actor of the night to make a recount joke. He said he’d hold on to it until the final tally was in. He also joked by thanking his “trophy” wife of 40 years.
Zoinks. This sucker’s moving swiftly. Great pacing. If only I could touch type…
Hugh Grant was the next presenter. His category was Best Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy. The winner was Renee Zellweger who pulled a Christine Lahti by being in the washroom when she was announced. Hugh almost accepted the award for her but she did make it in and fittingly had to walk by Ms. Lahti to get to the stage. She made sure to thank Cameron Crowe for choosing her a few years back for Jerry Maguire.
Haley Joel Osment was up next to introduce the clip for Billy Elliot. He also pointed out that the film’s star, Jamie Bell, did pretty good work for a young guy.
Nicole Kidman presented the award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy to George Clooney for O Brother, Where Art Thou?. He joked that looking at the names of the other actors he had to win. “De Niro, Cusack, Carrey, Gibson: What have they done?” He also joked he was the love child of Attorney-General candidate John Ashcroft.
Robert Downey Jr. was next to introduce the clip for Wonder Boys. He wondered allowed why George Clooney hadn’t asked him for technical advice when he played a convict in O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
Hannibal star Julianne Moore presented the Best Screenplay award to Steven Gaghan for Traffic. He called Traffic stars Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones “the nicest people you could ever meet.”
Winning the low cut outfit of the night award, Heather Locklear joined David Spade to present the Best Actress TV Drama award to Sela Ward for her work on Once and Again. Spade joked that the Hollywood Foreign Press seats all the movie stars up close but puts the TV folks out in the boonies.
Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey presented the Best Motion Picture Score Golden Globe to Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard for Gladiator.
Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan then did the usual tribute to the Hollywood Foreign Press. He also advised the winners to be humble because the other people in the ballroom “outnumber you 45 to 1 so it could get ugly.”
Back to the awards: Peter Fonda and Lara Flynn Boyle presented the Best Supporting Actress in TV to Vanessa Redgrave for If These Walls Could Talk II. Vanessa’s in London doing a play so she wasn’t there to accept.
Sigourney Weaver was up next to introduce the clip for Best Film Drama nominee Sunshine.
Phil Collins and Monica Bellucci came out to award the Globe for Best Song. Phil wondered if it was safe to stand this close to a woman named Monica. His Lewinsky joke fell to the floor with a very loud thud. Anyway, the winner for Best Song was “Things Have Changed” from Wonder Boys by Bob Dylan. Dylan was there and received a thunderous ovation. A little shocked, the rock veteran made a very short speech.
Julia Roberts came out and joked that she never expected in her wildest dreams that she’d ever follow Bob Dylan on stage. She was there to award the Best Director Motion Picture to Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Was it just me or did Julia Roberts look a little disappointed that Traffic/Erin Brockovich director Steven Soderbergh didn’t win? Lee thanked his wife jokingly for being the inspiration for all the tough fighting women in his film.
Camryn Manheim and Don Cheadle were up next to announce the winner of Best Supporting Actor Television. The winner was Robert Downey Jr. He said that David E. Kelley said his role on Ally McBeal was like having a new toy. He said he would do his best to “not get sent back to the factory”, a veiled reference to the possibility that he might have to go back to prison for his recent drug bust.
And now it’s time for Kevin Spacey to present the Cecil B. DeMille award to his friend, Al Pacino. Spacey said he had worked with Pacino twice and he found him “inventive and generous.” He said rather than make a long speech he preferred to let Pacino’s work speak for itself and showed a fantastic series of clips. Calling him “one of the best actors in this or any generation” he welcomed Al to the stage to accept his award.
Pacino said when he was four his mother used to take him to Cecil B. DeMille films and the next day he would act them out. He thanked his early acting teachers including Charlie Laughton. I had the honor of assisting Charlie during the shooting of Sea of Love and just from the conversations we had you could see why he was such a great teacher and influence on Pacino.
It was also touching to see the faces of the other people in the room. You could really tell that there’s a lot of love and admiration for the man and his work.
Melina Kanakaredes and Eriq LaSalle presented the night’s next award for Best TV Series Drama to The West Wing.
With roughly half an hour to go, the pace of the rest of the awards is going to make the earlier categories seem like a slow walk.
And now, to introduce the clip from Erin Brockovich…the real Erin Brockovich. She said that Julia Roberts got everything right: the challenge, the emotion and especially the cleavage.
Moving right along, Hilary Swank presented the Best Actor Motion Picture Drama to Tom Hanks for his role in Cast Away. Hanks seemed quite moved. He said he used to watch Al Pacino movies and want to act and listen to Bob Dylan and want to say something that lasted more than a few days. He also thanked his wife Rita, saying that each day he stands at the crossroads and sees nothing but love and acceptance in all directions.
The next presenters of the night Brendan Fraser and Gillian Anderson. They presented the Best Foreign Language Film to ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron then came out to present the first Best Picture award. Their category was Comedy/Musical and the winner was Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe’s fantastic love letter to the music of his youth. He thanked his mother for letting him go on the road with Led Zeppelin when he was sixteen.
Denzel Washington then introduced the nominees for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama. The winner was Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich. Julia was terribly excited to win. She said the real Erin was a true inspiration who proved that one person can make a difference the world. She also thanked Steven Soderbergh saying that she would read him the phone book if he asked. She ended off by saying that “I’m just shamelessly filled with joy!”
Jeff Bridges then introduced the clip for the Best Drama nominated Gladiator. (Hmm, if the Globes have awards for both Comedy and Drama, why don’t they show clips for the Comedy nominees? Well?)
Jeff then introduced Dame Elizabeth Taylor who was there to present the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama. She opened the envelope and was about to read the winner without reading the nominees. Dick Clark, the show’s producer, had to come out and explain to her that she needed to read the nominees off the teleprompter first. She then announced that the winner was the Ridley Scott film Gladiator.
Well, as Porky Pig would say, that’s all folks!