Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Triumph at the Golden Globes
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Paul Drinkwater/NBC(BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.) — At the 70th Annual Golden Globe Awards, held Sunday night, Les Miserables, Argo, Girls and Homeland may have been the big winners, but hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were the golden girls.
Taking over hosting duties from the controversial Ricky Gervais, the two former Saturday Night Live cast mates were irreverent without being cruel. Fey and Poehler tossed off some great lines throughout the evening, poking fun at Taylor Swift’s love life, George Clooney’s looks and Robert Downey Jr.’s acting range, musing on Anne Hathaway’s inability to be a porn star, and referring to their own pre-and-post Golden Globes diet regimes as The Hunger Games and Life of Pi, respectively.
Noting the absence of presenter Meryl Streep, Poehler got big laughs with the line, “Meryl Streep has the flu…and I hear she’s AMAZING in it.” She also scored when, following a surprise appearance by former President Bill Clinton as a presenter, she swooned, “That was Hillary Clinton’s husband!”
But Poehler really brought down the house while referring to the controversy over the torture scenes in director Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty.
“When it comes to torture, I trust a lady who spent three years married to James Cameron,” Poehler deadpanned.
Aside from Fey and Poehler’s success, it was a great night for women making great acceptance speeches.
When Adele took the Best Original Song prize for “Skyfall,” which she co-wrote, the new mother noted that she and the friend she’d brought along were “pissing ourselves laughing” all night.
“I’d like to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press. I never thought I’d say that,” the Grammy-winning singer laughed.
When Jennifer Lawrence came onstage to accept her Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy award for Silver Linings Playbook, she looked at the trophy and said in a teasing voice, “What does it say? ‘I beat Meryl!'”
When Anne Hathaway accepted her Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture prize for Les Miserables, she said, “Thank you for this lovely blunt object that I will forever use as a weapon against self-doubt.” She also thanked fellow nominee Sally Field, saying that as an actress who started out in the kids’ movie The Princess Diaries, it was inspiring to see that it was possible for a woman who was The Flying Nun to become Norma Rae, and then Mama Gump, and then Mary Todd Lincoln.
Accepting the Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama trophy for Zero Dark Thirty, Jessica Chastain praised “my director, Kathryn Bigelow,” who’d been snubbed for an Oscar nod. Chastain, who played a tough CIA operative in the film, said that even though Bigelow claims she doesn’t want her movies to be about gender roles, “When you make a film that allows your character to disobey the conventions of Hollywood, you’ve done more for women in cinema than you take credit for.”
HBO’s acclaimed series Girls was named top comedy and its star and co-creator, Lena Dunham, was named Best Actress in a TV Comedy. Dunham said she “worshiped” the other nominees in the category, which included Fey, Poehler and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, saying they’d all gotten her through “middle school, mono, a ruptured ear drum and acute floating anxiety.” She said the show was for “every woman who’s ever felt like there wasn’t a space for her.”
The night’s most baffling speech came from Jodie Foster, who was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her long career — as she pointed out, she’s only 50, but she’s been in showbiz for 47 years. Foster, who doesn’t talk about her sexuality, teasingly made it seem as though she was about to come out of the closet, but ended up simply announcing that she was “single,” adding, “I already did my coming out in the stone age.”
She did, however, thank her former partner, Cydney Bernard, who she referred to as the co-parent of her two sons, and said, “I love our amazing modern family.” Her comments inspired Poehler and Fey to close the show by saying, “We’re going home with Jodie Foster.”
Foster also made a comment that she doesn’t plan to return “to this stage or any stage,” leading many to assume she was announcing her retirement. But backstage, she insisted that she has no intention of retiring, and plans to direct more.
“You couldn’t drag me away,” Foster said.
As for the men in the room, Ben Affleck received a standing ovation when he was named Best Director for Argo, since he’d been snubbed for an Oscar nomination in that category.
“Look, I don’t care what the award is. When they put your name next to the names [Julia Roberts] just read off, it’s an extraordinary thing in your life,” Affleck said, referring to his fellow nominees, which included Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee and Quentin Tarantino.
Tarantino was a surprise winner for Best Screenplay for Django Unchained; that movie’s star, Christoph Waltz, was named Best Supporting Actor. As expected, Daniel Day-Lewis was named Best Actor in a Drama for Lincoln; Hugh Jackman won for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for Les Miserables.
On the TV side, Homeland was named Best Drama, while stars Claire Danes and Damian Lewis were named Best Actor and Actress in a Drama, respectively. Other winners included Don Cheadle, Best Actor in a Comedy for House of Lies; Julianne Moore, Best Actress in a Mini-Series or TV Movie for Game Change, and Kevin Costner, Best Actor in a Mini-Series or TV Movie for Hatfields & McCoys.
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