Los Angeles — Julia Roberts won the best-actress honor at the Screen Actors Guild awards Sunday for her sharp-tongued, flashily dressed fling in "Erin Brockovich." Benicio Del Toro took the best-actor prize for his worldly wise take on a Mexican drug cop in "Traffic."
Both have Oscar nominations for the same roles, though Del Toro is competing in the supporting-actor category at the Academy Awards.
Benicio Del Toro won the Screen Actors Guild award for best actor for his role in the film "Traffic." He is nominated for an Academy Award as a supporting actor for the same role.
"I'm just shaking. Thank you actors!" Roberts told the audience, choking back tears. "Just great, great actors, and now I really feel so much better about my level of talent than I did this afternoon. I'm not always sure. It's not just me, and there's just so many people who know I'm a fraud to just stand here alone."
"Traffic" won the award for best acting by an entire movie cast.
"I'd like to thank the whole cast of this picture, because I'm only as good as those guys," Del Toro said.
Albert Finney's turn as Roberts' curmudgeonly boss in "Erin Brockovich" earned him the supporting-actor honor. Judi Dench won the supporting-actress prize for her role as a cantankerous grandmother in "Chocolat."
Finney and Dench were not at the ceremony.
In SAG's six previous awards shows, 10 of the 12 winners in lead-acting categories went on to win Oscars. Because of a tie one year, the guild has honored 13 performers in supporting categories, with seven also winning an Oscar.
The guild honors performers in five movie and eight television categories.
Julia Roberts poses with her award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a leading role for her work in "Erin Brockovich" at the seventh annual Screen Actors Guild awards Sunday.
The White House series "The West Wing" dominated the television-drama categories. Martin Sheen, who plays the president, won for best dramatic actor, and Allison Janney, who plays the press secretary, won for best dramatic actress.
The cast of "The West Wing" also won the guild's dramatic ensemble honor.
Janney told the audience that she considered quitting once when her acting career wasn't going well. She said she went to a career-counseling office to take an aptitude test to find out what else she might do.
"They told me I would make an excellent systems analyst," Janney said. "I still don't know what that is. I'm so proud to be able to say I'm a working actress."
Sarah Jessica Parker of "Sex and the City" won for best actress in a TV comedy. Robert Downey Jr. won for best actor in a comedy series for "Ally McBeal." "Will & Grace" won for TV comedy ensemble.
The guild presented its lifetime achievement award to husband-and-wife acting team Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. They have been married and working together for 52 years.
"Marriage is an aspiration, love is an aspiration, peace on earth is an aspiration," Dee said. "But if you keep working hard at it, those muscles get stronger."
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