NEW YORK -- In a Golden Globes full of upsets, the Freddie Mercury bio-pic Bohemian Rhapsody took best picture, drama, over Bradley Cooper's heavily favored A Star is Born and Glenn Close bested Lady Gaga for best actress.
At Sunday's ceremony in Beverly Hills, Calif., few winners were seen as more certain than Lady Gaga as best actress in a drama for her role in A Star is Born. But the veteran actress Close pulled off the shocker for her performance in The Wife, as the spouse of a Nobel Prize-winning author. Close said she was thinking of her mother, "who really sublimated herself to my father for her whole life."
"We have to find personal fulfillment. We have to follow our dreams," said Close, drawing a standing ovation. "We have to say I can do that and I should be allowed to do that."
Minutes later, the surprise was even greater when Bohemian Rhapsody won the night's top award, shortly after Rami Malek won best actor for his prosthetic teeth-aided performance as Mercury.
"Thank you to Freddie Mercury for giving me the joy of a lifetime," said Malek. "This is for you, gorgeous."
Politics was largely absent from the ceremony before Christian Bale won best actor in a musical or comedy for his lead performance as Dick Cheney in Adam McKay's Vice.
"What do you think? Mitch McConnell next?" joked the Welsh-born actor, referring to the Senate majority leader. "Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration for this role."
Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg opened the Globes, run by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, on a note of congeniality, including a mock roast of attendees and a string of jokes that playfully commented on critiques of Hollywood.
But Oh, who later won an award for her performance on the BBC America drama series Killing Eve, and Samberg closed their opening monologue on a serious note explaining why she was hosting.
"I wanted to be here to look out at this audience and witness this moment of change," said Oh, tearing up and gazing at nominees from minority groups. "Right now, this moment is real. Trust me, this is real. Because I see you. And I see you. All of these faces of change. And now, so will everyone else."
Some of the faces Oh alluded to won. Mahershala Ali, whom the foreign press association overlooked for his Oscar-winning performance in Moonlight, won best supporting actor for Green Book. While the Globes, decided by 88 voting members of the foreign press association, have little relation to the Academy Awards, they can supply some awards-season momentum. Oscar nomination voting begins today.
Among the biggest winners was Green Book, Peter Farrelly's interracial road trip through the early '60s Deep South, which has struggled to catch on at the box office while coming under substantial criticism for relying on racial tropes. It won best film, comedy or musical, and best screenplay. "If Don Shirley and Tony Vallelonga can find common ground, we all can," said Farrelly.
Though the Globes are put on by foreign journalists, they don't include foreign-language films in their two best picture categories (for drama and musical/comedy). That left Netflix's Oscar hopeful, Alfonso Cuaron's memory-drenched masterwork Roma, out of the top category. Cuaron still won as best director, and the Mexican-born filmmaker's movie won best foreign-language film.
Jeff Bridges received the Globes' honorary Cecil B. DeMille Award. In remarks that shifted from Michael Cimino to Buckminster Fuller and, of course, to his Big Lebowski character the Dude, Bridges compared his life to a great game of tag. "We've all been tagged," said Bridges. "We're alive."
A similar television achievement award debuted this year, dubbed the Carol Burnett Award. Its first honoree was Burnett.
"I'm kind of really gob-smacked by this," said Burnett. "Does this mean that I get to accept it every year?"
Information for this article was contributed by Kristin M. Hall and Lindsey Bahr of The Associated Press.
A Section on 01/07/2019