Russell Crowe, Sir Ian McKellen win Screen Actors awards

4.55pm

LOS ANGELES - The race for the Oscars entered its home stretch with the five films nominated for best picture clustered as closely as ever after the Screen Actors Guild selected the cast of Gosford Park as the top performers in a film.

SAG, with some 98,000 member actors and actresses, picked Russell Crowe as the top male actor in A Beautiful Mind, in which he plays genius mathematician John Forbes Nash, who battled schizophrenia throughout his life.

The night's big surprise winner was Halle Berry, who claimed the SAG award for best female actor.

Berry won for her portrayal of a down-and-out waitress in the rural south in Monster's Ball, besting Sissy Spacek, who grabbed many earlier critical and industry honours for her portrayal of a grieving mother in In the Bedroom.

The gritty role was a departure for Berry, and she took a big chance with her career as an actress in one sexually explicit scene with co-star Billy Bob Thornton.

Onstage, Berry acknowledged the riskiness of her business, but said "it has paid off, big time".

Backstage, she teared up when reporters asked about her chances for an Oscar.

You know, I don't really care what happens at the Oscars, and I don't mean to be flip about it because so many good things have come my way because of this project.

The SAG honours are the last major film awards before the Oscars, which will be awarded on March 24. Oscars are awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and are the film industry's highest honours.

Each year, shows like the SAG's give Oscar watchers an indicator of who might take home Oscars, but the early honours have been all over the map this year with Beautiful Mind, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge, In the Bedroom and now Gosford Park all winning various critics' and industry honours.

Britain's Ian McKellen of Lord of the Rings was named best supporting male actor in a film. In Rings he portrays Gandalf, the wizard who aids the hobbit Frodo as he seeks to destroy a powerful ring whose owner could rule Middle Earth.

Onstage, McKellen thanked Rings director Peter Jackson who, he said, "invited me to try to impersonate the personality of Gandalf." Backstage, he told reporters, "this is sweet"."

Helen Mirren was named best female supporting actor for her role in Gosford Park.

Along with film awards, SAG names winners in television, and broadcast network

For the second straight year, West Wing swept the drama categories from its closest rival The Sopranos. West Wing, a show that depicts the inner workings of the White House, claimed the honour of best ensemble cast in a television drama.

"We're a well-oiled machine," the show's John Spencer told reporters backstage. "I'm always better depending on whom I'm dancing with, and these are the best partners I've ever had."

Martin Sheen, who plays President Bartlett, won the award for best male actor in a drama, and Allison Janney was named best female actor in a drama for her portrayal of White House press secretary C.J. Cregg.

Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally were named best male and female actor, respectively, in a comedy series for playing the best friends of Will and Grace in that sitcom.

The award for best ensemble cast in a comedy series went to Sex and the City, about the lives of four single women living in New York. The show's Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon showed up to accept their award, but star Sarah Jessica Parker was sick with the flu and couldn't be there.

In made-for-TV and miniseries categories, Sir Ben Kingsley claimed the award for playing Otto Frank in Anne Frank, about the young Jewish girl whose family hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II.

- REUTERS

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