SAG Awards honours actors of colour amid Oscar controversy

Idris Elba with his two SAG Awards. Jordan Strauss / Invision / AP

As the row over the lack of diversity in the Oscar nominations rumbles on, black actors took top honours at the 22nd Screen Actors Guild Awards on Saturday night.

The event was being closely watched as Hollywood reels from a fierce backlash over the Academy Awards nominations, in which all the acting nominees were white. A number of actors, including Will Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, have said they will not attend the Oscars ­ceremony on February 28 over the issue.

But the SAG awards celebrated and honoured black actors.

British actor Idris Elba, a ­former star of The Wire, ­received two awards. One was for best supporting actor, for Beasts of No Nation, the first original movie produced by video-streaming service Netflix, which is about child soldiers in Africa. The second was for best actor in a TV movie or mini-­series, for his role as a troubled detective in British crime drama Luther.

Uzo Aduba took home the award for outstanding actress in a comedy series for her role as Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren in Netflix's prison comedy-­drama Orange Is the New Black. The show also won the best comedy ensemble award for a second successive year.

Viola Davis won the best actress award for the legal drama How to Get Away With Murder, while Queen Latifah was named outstanding actress in a television movie or mini-series for her role in HBO's Bessie, a biopic about blues singer Bessie Smith.

After her win, Davis said: “We’ve become a society of trending topics. Diversity is not a trending topic. Regardless of what’s going on at the Academy, we will always find a way to be excellent.”

Other winners included Oscar front-runner Leonardo DiCaprio for his role as fur trapper Hugh Glass in the revenge thriller The Revenant.

In the best actress category, Brie Larson, also an Oscar favourite, won for Room, in which she plays a kidnapped woman living in captivity with her young son.

Kevin Spacey took home the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a drama series for his role in House of Cards, another Netflix show.

Spotlight, a film drama about the true story of journalists in Boston who battled to reveal sexual abuse by Catholic priests, won the best film ensemble award, the SAG equivalent of a best film Oscar.

In response to the backlash over the lack of diversity among the Oscar nominations, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has responded to the criticism by vowing to make major changes to its membership rules to promote diversity.