WATCH: ‘Downton Abbey’ Cast Reacts to Surprise SAG Awards Win

By Kevin Wicks | Posted on January 28th, 2013

From left, Phyllis Logan, Michelle Dockery, Allen Leech, Amy Nuttall and Sophie McShera at the SAG Awards. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

The cast of Downton Abbey were clearly gobsmacked when they won the Screen Actors Guild award for Best Ensemble in a Drama Series last night (January 27). (The favorites to win were Boardwalk Empire, which had won that particular gong for the previous two years, and recent awards’ darling Homeland.) Phyllis Logan, looking quite fresh out of Mrs. Hughes’ dreary uniforms, was elected to give the speech, which, right out of the gate, provided one of the great lines of the entire evening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sffP8yhLIsM

This was a pleasant splash of Britishness in a ceremony that had precious little, except for the pre-ordained Daniel Day-Lewis win as Best Actor in a Film for Lincoln. (Homeland‘s Claire Danes has proven to be the only person who can trump Maggie Smith‘s Dowager Countess at an awards ceremony. But of course, Dame Maggie didn’t show.)

Did you catch the SAG Awards? What was your favorite moment?

Kevin Wicks

Kevin Wicks founded BBCAmerica.com's Anglophenia blog back in 2005 and has been translating British culture for an American audience ever since. While not British himself - he was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri - he once received inordinate hospitality in London for sharing the name of a dead but beloved EastEnders character. His Anglophilia stems from a high school love of Morrissey, whom he calls his "gateway drug" into British culture.

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