Ryan Gosling, La La Land big winners at Golden Globes
La La Land steamrolled through the Jimmy Fallon-hosted Golden Globes that mixed the expected, champagne-sipping Hollywood celebration with often-voiced concern over president-elect Donald Trump.
Damien Chazelle’s Los Angeles musical, which came in with a leading seven nominations, won in every single one of those categories, topped by best motion picture – comedy or musical. Chazelle won both best director and best screenplay.
Ryan Gosling of London, Ont., won best actor in a comedy or musical for his performance in the film, his co-star Emma Stone prevailed as best actress in a comedy of musical, and La La Land also won for best score (Justin Hurwitz) and best song for City of Stars.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been mistaken for Ryan Reynolds,” Gosling joked, looking at his fellow nominee (and fellow Canadian), the star of Deadpool. In one of the evening’s more emotional acceptance speeches, Gosling dedicated his award to his late brother-in-law, Juan Carlos Mendes.
The night’s final award went to Barry Jenkins’ tender coming of age drama Moonlight. Its sole award among six nominations was for best motion picture, drama.
Should Moonlight and La La Land both be nominated on Jan. 24 for best picture Academy Award they will not be separated by category as in the Golden Globes.
Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) and Isabelle Huppert took home the top acting awards in the dramatic category. Affleck’s win was widely predicted, while Huppert in Elle beat out a strong field of nominees that included Amy Adams (Arrival) and Natalie Portman (Jackie).
Meryl Streep, the night’s Cecil B. DeMille Award honoree, supplied Sunday evening’s most striking rebuke to Trump. Streep, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention, called the president-elect’s mocking of a disabled reporter the year’s performance that most “stunned her.”
After listing the humble upbringings of several actors, she argued for the multinational makeup of Hollywood, Streep listed off the far-flung homes of stars from Dev Patel to Gosling — who she complimented “like all the nicest people” is Canadian.
“Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners and if you kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts,” Streep said to loud applause.
The show got off to a rocky start Sunday, with a broken teleprompter initially stalling host Jimmy Fallon, who still managed to start the show with a singing-and-dancing ode to La La Land and a steady diet of Donald Trump jokes.
“Cut to Justin Timberlake, please,” implored a desperate Fallon as he improvised while another teleprompter was brought in. It was the second recent fiasco for Globes producer Dick Clark Productions, which presented the infamous Mariah Carey flub on New Year’s Eve.
In a more truncated monologue, Fallon’s sharpest barbs weren’t directed at the stars in the room — as was the style of frequent host Ricky Gervais — but president-elect Trump. He compared Trump to the belligerent teenage king Joffrey of Games of Thrones. Fallon’s first line, once the telemprompter was working, was to introduce the Globes as “one of the few places left where America still honours the popular vote.”
That, though, isn’t quite true. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a collection of 85 members, has its own methods of selecting winners. Best supporting actress winner Viola Davis, the co-star of Denzel Washington’s August Wilson adaptation Fences, alluded to the group’s reputation for being wined and dined.
“I took all the pictures, went to luncheon,” said Davis, to knowing chuckles through the ballroom. “But it’s right on time.”
While Davis’s march to an Oscar seems virtually assured, other picks were more idiosyncratic.
British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson took best supporting actor for his performance in Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, in what could be considered a surprise win in a category with Mahersala Ali from Moonlight and Jeff Bridges from Hell or High Water.
There were expected winners, like The People v. O.J. Simpson taking best miniseries, as well as an award for that show’s Sarah Paulson. Other winners were less prepared – Donald Glover looked visibly surprised when his FX series Atlanta won best comedy series over heavyweights like Veep and Transparent.
Hugh Laurie, star of The Night Manager, also seemed taken aback when he was announced as best supporting actor in a limited series or TV film over the likes of John Travolta (The People v. O.J. Simpson) and John Lithgow (The Crown).
Laurie was one of the few early winners to pepper his acceptance speech with comments about Trump. “I accept this award on behalf of psychopathic billionaires everywhere,” he said. The Night Manager won two more awards, including best actor for Tom Hiddleston.
Paul Verhoeven’s Elle won best foreign language film while Disney’s Zootopia took best animated feature. Other winners included Tracee Ellis Ross (Black-ish) and Billy Bob Thornton (Goliath).