Jan 27, 2008 9:43 am US/Mountain
Tom Cruise Among Stars At SAG Rehearsal
LOS ANGELES (CBS) ―
Tom Cruise was among the stars who stopped by the Shrine Auditorium
Saturday to run through lines for Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards -
the only show during Hollywood's strike-subdued awards season that's
sure to have an A-list turnout.
Clad in a black blazer with a
matching turtleneck and jeans, Cruise chewed gum and joked with
stagehands as he practiced his lines in front of an audience of
stand-ins and seat-saving placards.
His rehearsal was broadcast
on monitors throughout the theater as workers prepared it for the 1,200
actors and industry heavyweights expected, along with scores of
journalists.
Among the expected guests at the union's 14th
annual awards show are Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, John Travolta,
Michelle Pfeiffer, Forest Whitaker and Cate Blanchett.
Even the
rehearsal list read like a star-studded party, with Chandra Wilson,
Vanessa Williams, Viggo Mortensen, Kate Beckinsale and James Marsden
among those taking the stage Saturday.
"Hairspray" star Nikki
Blonsky's mom worked a Blackberry as the actress practiced her lines.
Wearing a black tunic over matching leggings and her hair in a bun,
Blonsky smiled as she looked out at a front-row seat with her name on
it. After her five-minute rehearsal, a stage manager gave her the A-OK
sign and she rushed away to give an interview.
Outside, a tent
in the theater parking lot was transformed into an elegant setting for
the awards-show after party. Thousands of white roses filled giant gold
vases lining the curtain-draped walls. Half a dozen workers stood atop
tall ladders to trim the ceiling with greenery.
In just a few
hours, the crates of champagne flutes in the center of the room would
be replaced with actors rubbing elbows with their own.
With the
Golden Globes reduced to a press conference and the fate of the Oscars
still in question, Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards will bring the
first - and possibly only - dose of Tinseltown glamour for an industry
subdued by the writers strike.
"We're the only big-time
televised awards show on TV this year, so we'll get a lot of viewers,"
said SAG President Alan Rosenberg. "It's kind of a bittersweet thing.
Nobody wants to be in the position we're in."
Members of the
actors union have stood in solidarity with striking writers since their
walkout Nov. 5. The writers union granted a waiver for the 14th annual
Screen Actors Guild Awards, allowing the show to go on without pickets
and with union writers and the typical awards-show trappings. Writers
denied waivers for the Globes and the Academy Awards.
While
SAG's waiver was granted just last month, preparations for Sunday's
show have been in the works for more than a year, said producer Kathy
Connell. Organizers upped the glam factor this time not because of the
strike-forced scaling-down of other kudos ceremonies, but because the
show coincides with the union's 75th anniversary.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
