SAG Award Winners 2011: Snubs and surprises, including Natalie Portman's win over Annette Bening

TheScreen Actors Guild awardsmostly followed the script when it came to big-screen winners on Sunday night.

The almost 100,000-member strongSAGvoters nationwide crowned Colin Forth as Best Actor for"The King's Speech,"Christian BaleandMelissa Leoas Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress for"The Fighter,"and"King's Speech"as Best Ensemble, the guild's equivalent of Best Picture.

The only (minor) surprise wasNatalie Portman's win for Best Actress for"Black Swan."The newly pregnantLong Island-born actress scooped up her second major award of the season; earlier this month, she got Best Actress (Drama) at theGolden Globes.

Of course, the Globes divide up their big categories, and soAnnette Bening— Portman's main competition — got Best Actress in a Comedy for"The Kids Are All Right."The fact that Bening didn't receive the Best Actress spot from the actors— which is the biggest voting bloc in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts& Sciences, it should be noted— makes the Oscar Best Actress race trickier to call.

Otherwise, the main competition for Firth, Bale and Leo— respectively,James Franco("127 Hours"),Geoffrey Rush("The King's Speech") andAmy Adams("The Fighter")— lost ground, though Rush's inclusion as part of the"King's"juggernaut is worth keeping an eye on.

And"King's"Ensemble award isn't really surprising, given that"The Social Network"is at most a three or four-man show. The team who broughtKing George VI's prewar drama to life (Firth, Rush,Helena Bonham Carter,Michael Gambon,Derek Jacobi,Guy Pearce,Jennifer Ehle, andTimothy SpallasWinston Churchill) are more pedigreed that"TSN's"young upstarts, much less"The Fighter's"battling brood, or"True Grit's"western roustabouts. However, given"Grit's"10Oscar nominations, it certainly had as good a chance with SAG as any.

Whether Oscar will follow a similarly regal path is now fairly clear. Though of course, as any King knows, nothing is written in stone.

CLICK HERE FOR A FULL LIST OF SAG WINNERS

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