TV Work of Golden Globe Stars

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television
Ernest Borgnine – A Grandpa for Christmas

Check out Ernest as ‘Mermaid Man’ in the episode "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy" on Spongebob Squarepants - Season 1 - Disc 1 (1999)

Mermaid Man: Hold on Quickster I'll cool you down with one of my waterballs.

Three decades after playing the double act of Lt. Commander McHale and Ensign Parker in the 1960s World War II comedy, McHales Navy, Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway reunite as SpongeBob and Patrick’s favourite cartoon superheroes Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. Sharing characteristics with 1960s TV cartoon dynamic duos like Batman and Robin and Aquaman and Aqualad, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy appear happily ensconced in a Bikini Bottom old folks’ home. In their first of the superhero pair’s ongoing appearances in the series, Bob and Pat the pink starfish are out to coax them from retirement.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Alec Baldwin – 30 Rock

Check out Alec as Dr. Barrett Moore in the episode "Joan Rivers" on Nip / Tuck - Season 2 - Disc 5 (2003)

Ava: What's the matter, Christian? Am I too much of a woman for you??!

British stars Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent have for years kept their credibility in tact while flirting between film and TV. Now Americans such as Alec Baldwin manage the same balancing act. In the space of a few years Baldwin has joined Martin Scorsese's ensemble casts for The Aviator andThe Departed, and is now back starring in the Emmy award winning 30 Rock. He has also played plastic surgeon Dr Barrett Moore in Nip/Tuck. During a spicy ‘encounter’, south Florida plastic surgeon Dr Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) ‘discovers’ Ava Moore is really a transsexual. Troy and business partner Dr Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) head to a gender reassignment centre in Maryland where Moore is working. They learn he has been married to Ava/Avery, and previously operated on her. Can Christian and Sean convince Dr Moore to perform the final piece of surgery needed to make Ava ‘complete’?

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy
David Duchovny – Californication

Check out David as DEA Agent Dennis / Denise Bryson in Twin Peaks - Season 2: Part 1 - Disc 3 (1991)

DEA Agent Dennis / Denise Bryson: I still put my panties on one leg at a time.

Not content with casting ex-Mod Squad star Clarence Williams III as an FBI agent, David Lynch plucked David ‘soon-to-be Mulder in The X-Files’ Duchovny from relative obscurity to play Drug Enforcement Agency buddy Dennis Bryson - Special Agent Dale Cooper’s (Kyle MacLachlan) old buddy. To Coop’s surprise Dennis is now Denise and has taken to wearing women’s clothing and make-up. It was no big deal really - Agent Bryson had worked undercover as a transvestite investigating a drug deal and discovered he was more comfortable as a woman, so assumed the identity of Denise in everyday life. Bryson has come to Twin Peaks to investigate a drug dealing accusation leveled against Cooper. To help clear Coop’s good name, Bryson dons another ex-Mod Squadder’s (Peggy Lipton) ‘Double R’ restaurant waitress uniform and makes a home delivery one of the evil Renault brothers will never forget.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama
Julie Christie - Away From Her

Check out Julie as Christine/Andromeda in A for Andromeda (1961)

Andromeda: Our intelligence is going to take over and yours is going to die. You’ll go the way of the dinosaurs.

Be thankful at least some of this series survives – in the 1960s the BBC threw out most of their original copies! Set in 1970, a team of scientists intercept a signal from outer space that provides instructions on how to build a super computer. It also gives a formula for genetic experimentation - but when a young technician (Julie Christie) is electrocuted and then cloned by the computer, its evil plans are revealed. Director Michael Hayes cast a straight-out-of-drama-school Julie Christie in the lead role and set her on the path as ‘the new Bardot’ film success story in roles like Billy Liar, Doctor Zhivago and Far From the Madding Crowd.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
Keira Knightley – Atonement

Check out Keira as Lara Antipova in Doctor Zhivago (2002)

Yury : I'll be a doctor for others, and a poet for myself.

Boris Pasternak’s literary epic set during the Russian Revolution becomes a lavish televisual spectacular for the new millennium. Where Robert Bolt penned the script for David Lean’s 1965 cinematic extravaganza, veteran TV scriptwriter Andrew Davies (Pride and Prejudice, Middlemarch, Vanity Fair) does the honours here; the role of Dr. Yuri Zhivago that made Omar Sharif a ’60s matinee idol is taken on by relative newcomer Hans Matheson; and the part of heroine Lara that propelled Julie Christie to Hollywood stardom in the ’60s is played in 2002 by Keira Knightley. With its themes of love, betrayal and death, it’s your classic highbrow soap saga.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd

Check out Johnny as Officer Tom Hanson, Jr. in the episode "Awomp-Bomp-Aloobomb, Aloop Bamboom" on 21 Jump Street-Season 4 - Disc 5

In 2000, Johnny Depp made a memorable cameo in the last ever edition of the British sketch show The Fast Show - appearing with the world’s most excitable, yet sexually frustrated tailors Ken and Kenneth. Depp first made his name on TV though in the 1980’s show 21 Jump Street. He is one of the young cops who go undercover in schools to sort out troubled youth – think an updated Mod Squad. In this episode Hanson (Depp) and Penhall (Peter DeLuise) head to Florida to nab a bomber out to disrupt Spring Break. It’s great to see film-maker John Waters guest starring as a cult’s bus driver, Mr Bean (!); shortly after this, Waters was to cast Depp in the lead role in the film Cry-Baby.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
James McAvoy – Atonement

Check out James as David as Joe Macbeth in Macbeth (Shakespeare Retold) (2005)

James McAvoy has never been afraid of the small screen, clocking up high quality credits including the political thriller State of Play and the Mancunian romp Shameless. Here it’s a very modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, part of the BBC’s recent ShakespeaRe-Told series. The tale of lust for power and betrayal is shifted from its traditional setting within a monarchy, to a present day Scottish restaurant. Watch out for Spooks’ Keeley Hawes as Ella (Lady) Macbeth, and Finchy from The Office (Ralph Ineson) as one of the prophesising bin men/witches. A highlight is a scene referencing the supposed bad luck brought when mentioning “Macbeth” instead of “the Scottish Play” in a theatre (see the quote above). In homage to this reality TV celebrity age, the offending words “Macbeth” and “the Scottish Play” are replaced by that of current chef celebre “Gordon Ramsay” and “The Scottish Chef”.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television
James Nesbitt – Jekyll

Check out James as Leo McGarvey in the episode "Amongst Friends" on Ballykissangel - Series 3 - Disc 3 (1997)

There goes a dog-fish, chased by a cat-fish, in flew a sea robin, watch out for that piranha, there goes a narwhal, here comes a bikini whale! (Rock Lobster, The B-52s)

James Nesbitt has made a career out of playing TV nice guys like Cold Feet’s Adam and Murphy’s Law’s Tommy; but in the ’90s he was the man in Ballykissangel, who, along with a religious order, kept doomed couple Assumpta Fitzgerald and Father Peter Clifford apart. In the third series, Father Peter returns from retreat to learn Assumpta’s university friend Leo McGarvey (Nesbitt) has not only returned to the ‘quaint Irish village’, but McGarvey has married Assumpta! The city journalist in Leo never settles down though, and soon he departs Assumpta’s life. But Leo’s back again in this episode, returning to BallyK after the (SPOILER ALERT!!!) literally shocking death of Assumpta. Will Leo’s baiting of Father Pete see the best right hook from a TV man of the cloth since M*A*S*H’s Father Mulcahy? Also look out for Leo almost breaking the town’s heart by taking Assumpta’s Irish setter, Fionn, away with him.

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
Aaron Sorkin - Charlie Wilson's War

Check out Aaron Sorkins ‘Pilot’ episode on The West Wing - Season 1 - Disc 1 (1999)

John Van Dyke: When our children can go to any street corner in America and buy pornography for five dollars, don't you think that is too high a price to pay for free speech?
President Josiah Bartlet: No. On the other hand, I think that five dollars is too high a price to pay for pornography.

In late 2006, American network NBC launched two different shows set behind the scenes of fictional live sketch comedy shows. While Tina Fey’s 30 Rock was recently picked up for a second season, Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was not. This means TV wise Sorkin is still probably best known for The West Wing, his drama set around the administrations of the fictional President of the United States, Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen). I always found it a bit too obvious and preachy, but then I’m probably just an Anglophile who thinks the Brits just get on with doing the odd lefty drama without shouting from the rooftops about the fact they’re doing it. Still, it’s worth going back to the first episode of The West Wing to see what all the fuss was about; and to again experience those fast ensemble cast walks down corridor after corridor to the accompaniment of witty, jocular banter - the verbal equivalent of pop culture tennis rallies.