Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/129167
OM G E.C IM A I RE VA C/ W KO EL A CHRISTOPHER POLK/WIREIMAGE.COM Ben Affleck accepts the Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture award for Argo. M BEN'S MESSAGE TO ACTORS I am really amazed and stunned; there are so many great actors here and this is voted on by our brothers who are actors. here's a hundred and some thousand people in SAG-AFTRA. Some of them never get to come to a place like this," began Ben Aleck as he stepped up to the mic at the SAG Awards to accept the Actor for best ensemble cast for Argo. He went on to praise those who worked in front of the camera for him as director of the ilm. "his has nothing to do with me, it has to do with the incredible people who are in this movie," he said. "We had more than 150 actors. hey spoke in English, they spoke in Farsi, and the one thing that they had in common was that they came to work every single day, whether they had a line or a look to somebody, or two lines or 10 lines, or a bunch of stuf I couldn't understand in Farsi, and they wanted to kill it to make the movie better. Because that's what actors do all over the world, every day. hank you so much for making the movies that you make, and the television you make, and the theater you make. We are in your debt. hank you. God bless you." Aleck joined SAG as a young performer in 1987, and later AFTRA in 1999. Backstage, he told the press how proud he was "to have an ensemble that included the work-a-day people that IC H make up the bulk of this SAG-AFTRA membership, who come to work ... who try their best and get shit on going on auditions, who can't get an agent and who are struggling uphill all the time. And when they inally do get a part, it's just two lines and they try to make it good. Still, they come in with an attitude that they want to be brilliant, and they want to make the director happy. You know, those are the people who really move me, and those are the people that vote for this [award]. If you're an actor and you're in SAG-AFTRA, you understand that." Argo would go on to win three Oscars at the 85th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. SAGAFTRA.org | Spring 2013 | SAG-AFTRA 31