Christopher Plummer’s Oscar hopes increase after Guild awards

VETERAN actor Christopher Plummer and Deep South drama The Help took the honours at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, firming up their Academy Awards prospects next month.

The Help won three prizes at the awards, including best actress for Viola Davis and supporting actress for Octavia Spencer. The film also claimed the guild’s ensemble award, the show’s equivalent of a best picture prize. Davis and Spencer won as black maids going public with uneasy truths about their white employers in 1960s Mississippi.

Jean Dujardin won the lead actor honour for The Artist as a silent-film superstar whose career crumbles when the sound era arrives.

Christopher Plummer won for supporting actor as an elderly father who comes out as gay in Beginners.

The wins boost the actors’ prospects for the same honours at the February 26 Academy Awards. Plummer would become the oldest actor ever to win an Oscar at age 82, two years older than Jessica Tandy when she won best actress for Driving Miss Daisy.

Backstage, he joked about whether he would like to win an Oscar, an honour that has eluded him during his esteemed 60-year career.