Birdman comes out on top at the 21st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards

Birdman topped the 21st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, winning best ensemble cast, even though star Michael Keaton lost to Eddie Redmayne in the most outstanding actor category.

Michael Keaton and Edward Norton and other cast members of Birdman hold the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California, USA, 25 January 2015. EPAShow less

Birdman topped the 21st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, winning Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, even though its star Michael Keaton lost to Eddie Redmayne in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role category.

The Oscar favourites Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette and J K Simmons cemented their front-runner status in a ceremony that often serves as a kind of preview to the Academy Awards.

Keaton led the Birdman cast, including Emma Stone, Edward Norton and Zach Galifianakis, in accepting the top honour from the acting guild, calling the profession “the ultimate team sport”.

“Every time I turned around, I ran into another tremendous actor,” said Keaton.

Redmayne, who stars as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, was the surprise winner in a category expected to go to Keaton for his career-best performance as a Hollywood has-been trying to mount a comeback on Broadway. Redmayne dedicated his award to sufferers of motor neuron disease.

Moore, widely considered the Best Actress favourite, won Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for Still Alice, in which she plays an academic with early-onset Alzheimer's.

Accepting the award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance as a domineering jazz teacher in Whiplash, Simmons thanked all 49 actors who appear in the drama.

The Boyhood star Arquette added the latest in a string of awards, taking the supporting actress honour for her performance, filmed over the course of 12 years.

“I can’t tell you what this means to me,” said Arquette. “I’m a fourth-generation actor. My family has been committed to acting for more than a century, through feast or famine.”

The show kicked off with a pair of wins for the Netflix prison series Orange Is the New Black, honouring it as Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series and naming Uzo Aduba Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series.

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series went to Downton Abbey, the second time the show has won the category.

Because actors make up the largest portion of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the SAG Awards are also considered one of the most telling Oscars tips. Last year, the top four winners – Matthew McConaughey, Cate Blanchett, Lupita Nyong’o and Jared Leto – all went on to win Academy Awards after first scooping up SAG Awards.

In the past six years, SAG Best Ensemble and Academy Award Best Picture winners have lined up three times (Argo, The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire). Last year, the actors chose American Hustle over the eventual Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave.

Two actors who usually reside on the big screen won the SAG Awards for performances in a mini-series or TV movie: Mark Ruffalo (for HBO's A Normal Heart) and Frances McDormand (for HBO's Olive Kitteredge). Kevin Spacey (House of Cards), William H Macy (Shameless) and Viola Davis (How to Get Away With Murder) also collected awards.

Debbie Reynolds, the Singin' in the Rain star, was honoured with the SAG Life Achievement Award which her daughter, Carrie Fisher, presented.

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