The stars we love

The best actors in Hollywood will be front and center at the Screen Actors Guild Awards this Sunday in Los Angeles. Lorrie Lynch, our Who's News columnist, tosses objectivity aside and tells us whom she loves and why.

Join Lorrie at whosnewsblog.com as she blogs live from the Screen Actors Guild Awards Sunday on TNT and TBS from 8 to 10 p.m.

Every year at awards season, you, my readers, ask which stars or performances I like best, so this year I decided to share my favorites. With this weekend's Screen Actors Guild Awards -- the only awards truly given to actors by their peers -- as a backdrop, I picked the nominees from TV and movies who take center stage in my book. Read on to see if you agree.

Jon Hamm, AMC's "Mad Men"
First of all, he's a St. Louis man -- a guy who comes from the middle of the country and gets it. He studied acting at Missouri, not Yale or NYU. Mizzou. "I'm a Midwesterner," Hamm, 37, tells us. "I'm just sort of basic. There's not a lot of affect, not a lot of ego. I'm just easygoing."

Hamm is a man's man -- a golfer and a football fan -- who refers to his girlfriend, actress Jennifer Westfeldt, as his "lady." As in, "I have a lady, a great lady. I love her a lot, and she loves me."

When he's all dressed up as '60s adman Don Draper, with the fedora, dark suit and skinny tie, he brings back memories of my father, an insurance man, who wore hats and overcoats and went off to work in the city. Draper evokes memories of Hamm's father, too. "My dad was that guy," he says.

Like others, I believe Hamm is the new George Clooney, although Hamm himself doesn't buy it: "We already have a very serviceable George Clooney out there," he tells us. "But if there's any career to imitate, he's certainly got a great one." Hamm will have a great one, too.

Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"
Jenkins, 61, has never lacked for work. A character actor with a hefty résumé, he tells us, "I have no regrets and no expectations." A leading role was not something he'd longed for, but, he says, "I'd always wondered what it would be like to carry a film, and this just kind of happened." He need wonder no more.

Viola Davis, "Doubt"
Davis, 43, is finally getting her due. She's a wife, mother and Juilliard-trained actor on the brink of stardom. "It just feels like I've arrived at a different level all of a sudden, that something major has shifted in my life," she tells us. She admits to frustration but not self-doubt during the years of smaller parts. "A passion for acting keeps you in it." Now there's no doubt that she's in it to stay.

Shirley MacLaine, Lifetime's "Coco Chanel"
MacLaine likes to play difficult women, but she tells us she doesn't see herself as one: "No, I'm the cooperative one who, if you do screw up, I'll tell you." This trait I so admire -- speaking her mind freely -- isn't new. "It's been going on since I was 19," says the woman who used to hang out with the Rat Pack. Turning 75 this spring, MacLaine, who is unparalleled in work like "Terms of Endearment" and "The Turning Point," admits that she now wants to "relax into creativity. I'm working for myself now instead of the studios." She always worked for me.

Meryl Streep, "Doubt"
I knew Streep, 59, was unusual when, in 1979, I saw "The Deer Hunter." I fell in love with her in "Kramer vs. Kramer" because she was so achingly real. She tore me up in "Sophie's Choice" and terrified me in "The Devil Wears Prada." But here's the thing: I want to be Meryl Streep, because she's so extraordinary at her job that she'll be able to work in what she wants, as long as she wants, without fear of mistakes or lack of opportunities.

Robert Downey Jr., "Tropic Thunder"
Downey is the best thing about "Tropic Thunder," but then, Downey, 43, is the best thing about every movie or TV show he's in. I still think he was never better than he was in "Ally McBeal," romancing Calista Flockhart's lovelorn Ally. I cried when he left "" partly because I knew that in real life he was going back to drug rehab. "A lot of things that happened were really humiliating and awful and unfair," Downey tells us of that time in his life. "I'd always felt like a pretty huge outsider. Now I realize I've earned my seat in this town, and it's all right to sit in it."

Melissa Leo, Frozen River
You know Leo, 48, from "Homicide: Life on the Street" and other quality TV work over two dozen years. She tells us she would act "naked on a street corner, if I had to" because she loves it that much. "My mother brought me up in such a way that she loved me and made it clear that she thought I was capable of anything. But she would not tolerate vanity," Leo says. Ultimately, that was a gift. "I'm easily lost within my characters. So much so that the character shines through more than me." Exactly.

Alec Baldwin, NBC's "30 Rock"
Few performances on TV today are as brilliant as Baldwin's in "30 Rock." Every week, he seems to add more layers to his Jack Donaghy and play his scenes pitch-perfectly. Who can forget the scene in which he helps Tracy Jordan and Tracy's therapist by playing the many people who may have screwed Tracy up? Baldwin's weekly sitcom commitment means we haven't seen the Oscar-nominated actor in the movies much, a sacrifice I'm willing to make. But Baldwin, 50, tells us, "I don't think of it as being a sacrifice. I never go to work and think, 'I don't want to be here.' "

Kate Winslet, "The Reader" and "Revolutionary Road"
Winslet, 33, may well be the best actress of her generation. The movies she chooses, like those this year, are often difficult fare; she doesn't care. She likes material that challenges her and makes us think. I also like that she worries little about her image. "I used to get upset when I saw pictures of me in magazines putting the garbage bins out," she tells us. "Now, if pictures like that of me are taken, I don't care. Life's just too short."

Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Woody Allen has a thing for Scarlett Johansson, but Cruz, 34, makes it clear in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" that Allen is enthralled with the wrong woman. The film comes alive when Cruz arrives, all messy, sexy and unrestrained. Her real life is a bit like that -- sexy and unrestrained, at least. She falls in love with leading man (Tom Cruise) after leading man (Matthew McConaughey) after leading man (Javier Bardem), and we cheer her on, never worrying about whether she'll settle down. Why should she? All the romance certainly doesn't distract from her work.

Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler"
I don't want to like Rourke, 52, and yet I have to give him props because a) he is talented, and b) he recognizes that he screwed up his career. "The Wrestler" may well be Rourke's redemption; the film has a lot of parallels with his life. "I've been fortunate enough to have a second chance," he tells us. "And they're not going to give me another one." So don't blow this, Mickey.

Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"
You've got to love a girl who can make fun of herself, as Hathaway, 26, did on "Saturday Night Live" after the humiliating breakup with her fraud of an Italian boyfriend. Beyond that, she's an actress who can get smart and sexy, then surprise even herself with a provocative portrayal of an in-recovery drug addict at her sister's wedding. She says she didn't know she had Oscar-caliber work in her, but her mother did. Of course. Moms always know best.

Contributing: Nancy Mills, Jon Tollestrup
Cover photo of Jon Hamm by John Russo, Corbis Outline

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