LOS ANGELES, Jan 28, (AP): The CIA thriller “Argo” continued to steamroll through awards season, winning the top honor for overall cast performance at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. SAG’s lead-acting honors Sunday went to Jennifer Lawrence for her role as a troubled widow in a shaky new relationship in the lost-souls romance “Silver Linings Playbook” and Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War epic “Lincoln.” Anne Hathaway of “Les Miserables” and Tommy Lee Jones of “Lincoln” won the supporting-acting honors. “It occurred to me — it was an actor that murdered Abraham Lincoln,” said Day-Lewis, a solid front-runner to join an exclusive list of three-time acting Oscar winners. “And therefore, somehow it is only so fitting that every now and then an actor tries to bring him back to life again.” It was a brisk, businesslike and fairly bland evening as the actors union handed out honors to a predictable lineup of winners who generally had triumphed at earlier Hollywood ceremonies or past SAG shows. The SAG cast win came a day after “Argo” claimed the top honor from the Producers Guild of America, whose winner often goes on to claim best picture at the Academy Awards. “Argo” also was a surprise victor two weeks ago at the Golden Globes, where it won best drama and director for Ben Affleck.

Rare
The awards momentum positions “Argo” for a rare feat at the Feb. 24 Oscars, where it could become just the fourth film in 85 years to be named best picture without a nomination for its director. “To me this has nothing to do with me, it has to do with the incredible people who were in this movie,” said Affleck, who also stars in “Argo” and accepted the SAG prize alongside his cast.
Affleck plays CIA agent Tony Mendez, who masterminded the daring rescue of six US embassy workers in Iran after the 1979 hostage crisis erupted. The Americans were brought out of Iran masquerading as crew members of a fake Hollywood sci-fi movie scouting locations.
A directing nomination at the Oscars usually goes hand in hand with a best-picture win. When Affleck was snubbed for a directing slot, awards analysts initially were counting “Argo” out for the best-picture Oscar, along with Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” and Tom Hooper’s “Les Miserables,” which also missed out on directing nominations.

Only once in modern times has a film won best picture without a directing nomination, with 1989’s “Driving Miss Daisy.” The other two times came in the show’s early years, at the first Oscars in 1929 with “Wings” and for 1932’s “Grand Hotel.”
But “Argo” has proven a resilient crowd-pleaser, dominating at awards shows since then over Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” which leads the Oscars with 12 nominations.
The cast prize at SAG adds some weight to the Oscar prospects for “Argo,” though the guild honor has a spotty record at forecasting eventual best-picture winners. Only eight of 17 times since the guild added the category has the cast winner gone on to take the best-picture Oscar. “The Help” won the guild’s cast prize last year, while Oscar voters named “The Artist” as best picture.

The next playoff round before the Oscars is Saturday’s Directors Guild of America Awards, where Affleck, Bigelow, Spielberg and Hooper all are nominated, along with Ang Lee for “Life of Pi.” The winner there typically goes on to triumph with directing and best-picture Oscars, but only Spielberg and Lee are nominated for both the Directors Guild and Oscar prizes this time, throwing the awards picture into a muddle.
Sunday’s acting prizes solidify those categories, though. “Silver Linings” star Lawrence won a Golden Globe and has become one of Hollywood’s hottest talents, with part two of her blockbuster franchise, “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” due out in November.
“Now I have this naked statue that means some of you even voted for me, and that is an indescribable feeling,” Lawrence said after explaining she earned her SAG card at age 14 by filming a spot for MTV.

Doomed
Hathaway won for her role as a doomed single mother forced into prostitution in the adaptation of the stage musical based on Victor Hugo’s epic novel. Her win came over four past Oscar recipients — Sally Field, Helen Hunt, Nicole Kidman and Maggie Smith. Jones, who was not at the show, won for his turn as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens in the Civil War epic. The win improves his odds to become a two-time Academy Award winner. He previously won a supporting-actor Oscar for “The Fugitive.”
Day-Lewis, a two-time Oscar winner for “My Left Foot” and “There Will Be Blood,” could become the fifth actor to earn three Oscars, along with Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman and Walter Brennan. Katharine Hepburn has the acting record with four Oscars.
“Modern Family” won for best overall cast in a TV comedy show. Accepting for the cast, “Modern Family” co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson offered thanks to the makers of “30 Rock” and another departing series, “The Office,” saying “you all have set the comedy bar so high.”
The TV drama acting awards went to Claire Danes of “Homeland” and Bryan Cranston of “Breaking Bad.” ‘’Downton Abbey” won the TV drama cast award.

Julianne Moore’s turn as Sarah Palin in “Game Change” earned her the TV prize for best actress in a movie or miniseries. Kevin Costner won for best actor in a movie or miniseries for “Hatfields & McCoys.” The James Bond adventure “Skyfall” and the fantasy series “Game of Thrones” have picked up prizes for best stunt work from the Screen Actors Guild.
The stunt honors were announced Sunday on the red carpet before the official SAG Awards ceremony, as stars were gathering for their guild’s big night.
JoBeth Williams and Scott Bakula announced the winners, noting the value of stunt players, who often are overlooked for their contributions to film and television.
Among the early arrivals were Sally Field, Peter Facinelli, Steve Buscemi, Ellie Kemper, Busy Phillips and Alec Baldwin, who has won six-straight SAG awards for actor in a comedy series.
“It’s all the actors. It’s all the tribe,” Sally Field, a supporting-actress nominee for the Civil War epic “Lincoln,” said of the SAG honors. “I’ve always been incredibly proud to be a member of the tribe.”

“You get to see everyone here at the SAG Awards,” said Facinelli, a co-star of the “Twilight” movies and “Nurse Jackie,” which is nominated for best TV comedy cast. “It’s where the reunion happens.”
Among nominees for the 19th annual guild awards are Oscar winners Field, Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones for “Lincoln”; Hugh Jackman and Hathaway for the Victor Hugo musical adaptation “Les Miserables”; and Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Oscar recipient Robert De Niro for the oddball romance “Silver Linings Playbook.”
De Niro and Jones are in an exclusive supporting-actors group where all five nominees are past Oscar winners. The others are Alan Arkin for the Iran hostage-crisis thriller “Argo,” Javier Bardem for the James Bond adventure “Skyfall” and Philip Seymour Hoffman for the cult drama “The Master.”
Honors from the actors union, next weekend’s Directors Guild of America Awards and Saturday night’s Producers Guild of America Awards — whose top honor went to “Argo” — typically help to establish clear favorites for the Oscars.

But Oscar night on Feb. 24 looks more uncertain this time after some top directing prospects, including Affleck for “Argo” and Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty,” missed out on nominations. Both films were nominated for best picture, but a movie rarely wins the top Oscar if its director is not also in the running.
The Screen Actors Guild honors at least should help to establish solid front-runners for the stars. All four of the guild’s individual acting winners often go on to receive the same prizes at the Academy Awards.
Last year, the guild went just three-for-four — with lead actor Jean Dujardin of “The Artist” and supporting players Octavia Spencer of “The Help” and Christopher Plummer of “Beginners” also taking home Oscars. The guild’s lead-actress winner, Viola Davis of “The Help,” missed out on the Oscar, which went to Meryl Streep for “The Iron Lady.”
The guild also presents an award for overall cast performance, its equivalent of a best-picture honor. The nominees are “Argo,” “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” “Les Miserables,” “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Yet the cast prize has a spotty record at predicting the eventual best-picture recipient at the Oscars. Only eight of 17 times since the guild added the category has the cast winner gone on to take the best-picture Oscar. “The Help” won the guild’s cast prize last year, while Oscar voters named “The Artist” as best picture.
Such past guild cast winners as “The Birdcage,” “Gosford Park” and “Inglourious Basterds” also failed to take the top Oscar.
Airing live on TNT and TBS, the show features nine television categories, as well.
He’s acted, danced and sang his way through movies, television and the stage, making Dick Van Dyke an entertainment triple-threat long before Hollywood used such hyphenates.
The 87-year-old actor, best known for the 1960s hit comedy “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and Disney’s big-screen musical “Mary Poppins,” can now add lifetime achievement honoree. He added that honor to his resume at Sunday night’s 19th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Comic
“They tell me you never work again once you get this award,” Van Dyke said on the red carpet. “I’ll have to let them know I’m available.”
His career has spanned eight decades, starting with work as a disc jockey and a standup comic in the late ‘40s. He even worked as a national television morning-show host, with no less than Walter Cronkite serving as his news anchor.
But perhaps Van Dyke’s most critical career break came in 1960, when director Gower Champion hired him as the male lead opposite Chita Rivera in the new Broadway-bound stage musical “Bye Bye Birdie.”
Van Dyke had no professional dance experience, and out-of-town tryouts did not go well. Nevertheless, Champion refused to fire the actor, who would go on to New York with Rivera and win a Tony award for his performance.

About a year later, Van Dyke was starring in his own sitcom, in the role of TV comedy writer Rob Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Three prime-time Emmys for Van Dyke and more than 50 years later, the series remains revered by many critics as one of the earliest models of great workplace comedy.
“‘The ‘Dick Van Dyke Show’ was the most fun I ever had and the most creative period of my life,” he said on the red carpet.
During the series’ run, Van Dyke also enjoyed big-screen hits, including the 1963 “Birdie” movie and the 1964 all-star comedy, “What a Way to Go!” But biggest of all was “Mary Poppins,” in which he introduced the Oscar-winning song “Chim Chim Cher-ee.”

World-famous
“I’m world-famous for my Cockney accent,” Van Dyke kidded in his acceptance speech. He has said his British-born co-star, Julie Andrews, told him he never got the accent right.
Last year, Van Dyke presented the same lifetime achievement honor to his former TV co-star, Mary Tyler Moore.
These days, Van Dyke sings with his vocal group, The Vantasix, and enjoys life with his wife of one year, makeup artist Arlene Silver. The couple met seven years ago at the SAG Awards.
Tina Fey had a surprise waiting when the “30 Rock” star arrived backstage at the Screen Actors Guild Awards to pick up her trophy. Alec Baldwin together with Fey won SAG awards for best comedy performance

After winning best comedy actress for the fifth time, Fey signed her name left-handed to the statuette receipt and agreement awaiting all winners at the trophy table on Sunday night.
Then she looked at her award and noticed the base was swathed in black duct tape.
“I got one with a camera,” Fey said. “I saw the tape and I thought it was broken.”
She was told the attached camera would be following the award throughout the evening to record its activities. At that, she leaned over and whispered sweet words to what she called “trophy No. 775.”
“I didn’t expect to be out of my seat at all tonight,” Fey said in the small room. “I thought I was going to get drunk.”

Complete list of winners at 19th annual SAG Awards
A complete list of winners at Sunday’s 19th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards:
 

Movies:
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, “Lincoln”
Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”
Supporting actor: Tommy Lee Jones, “Lincoln”
Supporting actress: Anne Hathaway, “Les Miserables”
Cast: “Argo”
Stunt ensemble: “Skyfall”

Television:
Actor in a movie or miniseries: Kevin Costner “Hatfields & McCoys”
Actress in a movie or miniseries: Julianne Moore, “Game Change”
Actor in a drama series: Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad”
Actress in a drama series: Claire Danes, “Homeland”
Actor in a comedy series: Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock”
Actress in a comedy series: Tina Fey, “30 Rock”
Drama series cast: “Downton Abbey”
Comedy series cast: “Modern Family”
Stunt ensemble: “Game of Thrones”
Life Achievement: Dick Van Dyke