Game Change, Homeland and Girls win at Golden Globes TV awards

Showtime's Homeland scored a sweep of the biggest drama awards while HBO scored with Girls and Game Change.

Actress Claire Danes won Best Best Actress in a Television Series (Drama) for Homeland. Kevin Winter / Getty Images / AFP

Premium cable networks HBO and Showtime fought for supremacy in the Golden Globes TV awards with three honors each for the CIA thriller Homeland and Game Change, the movie about Sarah Palin's ascent from obscurity to 2008 vice presidential candidate.

Awards for Girls as best comedy and show creator Lena Dunham as best comic actress gave HBO a 5-4 victory over its biggest rival in the end. For the commercial broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox it was a complete shutout. PBS had one award.

Despite the presence of show hosts and best comic actress nominees Tina Fey and Amy Poehler of NBC, it was Dunham who was proclaimed the queen of comedy Sunday. An emotional Dunham, who stars as Hannah Horvath in the series about young women in their 20s navigating young adulthood in New York City, thanked her fellow comedy nominees for helping her get through middle school, mono, a ruptured eardrum "and the acute anxiety that populates my entire life." "This award is for everyone who felt like there wasn't a space for her," Dunham said. "This show has made a space for me."

Fey and Poehler, sharp in their first role as co-hosts, later appeared noting that "everybody's getting loose now that we're all losers." Fey's influential 30 Rock ends its run on NBC later this month.

Showtime's Homeland scored a sweep of the biggest drama awards, including best TV drama for the second year in a row. Co-stars Claire Danes, who plays CIA agent Carrie Mathison and Damian Lewis, who stars as Sgt. Nicholas Brody, both won top acting awards. Lewis emotionally dedicated his award to his late mother, while Danes paid to tribute to her baby son.

Alex Ganza, executive producer of Homeland, recalled an arduous night of filming where star Claire Danes, eight months pregnant, had to do multiple takes being chased in a drainage pipe."We fairly killed ourselves trying to live up to the hype of that first season and this award tells that maybe, maybe, we didn't screw it up," he said. Lewis said the last 18 months working on Homeland have been "an exciting, wonderful journey." He said that picking up "a piece of hardware like this is a great perk," holding up his Globe. Danes said she was "very proud to be working in this medium in this moment in this company."

Showtime's fourth award went to Don Cheadle, named best comedy actor for his role as Marty Kaan, leader of a team of slippery management consultants in House of Lies. Game Change was named best TV movie or miniseries.

Julianne Moore won as best actress in a miniseries or movie for her portrayal of Palin while Ed Harris – although he portrayed the man on the top of the ticket, presidential candidate John McCain – was the supporting actor winner. Jay Roach, executive producer of the series, said Moore was brave to take on the role of a political polarizing figure in the film, which balances her appeal as a sudden national figure and the chaos backstage in the campaign." Now with you and Tina Fey, we have three of the most incredible impersonations of Sarah Palin," Roach said, "counting Sarah Palin."

Moore made it a point to thank Fey, Sunday's Golden Globes co-host known whose indelible Palin skits on Saturday Night Live enlivened the 2008 campaign, and newswoman Katie Couric, who had a contentious interview with Palin that year. She did not thank Palin. Harris did not attend the Golden Globes.

Makers of Game Change said they attempted to build a balanced portrait of Palin, and Moore said backstage that it was not a character assassination. Although Palin aides criticized the depiction, the former Alaska governor told ABC News that the film did not matter to her. "One of the things I found in my research is that she's an incredibly devoted parent and cares very much about what she does," Moore said. "The conclusion I drew was she was simply unprepared for the vice presidency."

Kevin Costner won the Globe for best acting in a TV miniseries or movie for Hatfields & McCoys. The History channel miniseries proved a big hit when it aired last spring. Costner, who won a Globe for directing Dances With Wolves in 1991, nostalgically recalled walking into the awards ceremony as a young actor. Veteran actress Maggie Smith, who plays Violet Crawley, the Countess of Grantham in the PBS period piece Downton Abbey, won as best supporting actress in a TV series.