Out of nowhere French actor Jean Dujardin appeared and made the world’s stage his. The convivial acteur has just won the Best Actor award at the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) awards last night in Los Angeles for his performance in The Artist (this follows the film’s garnering of multiple Golden Globe awards in a recent ceremony). Though I’m not sure why, the SAG award for best film went to The Help, directed by Tate Taylor (Winter’s Bone). The Artist, a Weinstein-produced silent black and white tribute to the Hollywood of yore is a shoo-in for all of the top awards this season. It takes chutzpah and a serious amount of faith to carry out a project like this, to say nothing of this extraordinary group of people (Dujardin, director Michel Hazanavicius, actor Bérénice Béjo) getting together to bring this soulful ode to cinema to the big screen. Give credit where credit is due.

Of his win Dujardin remarked, “I was a very bad student. I didn’t listen in class, I was always dreaming. My teachers called me ‘Jean of the Moon’, and I realize now that I never stopped dreaming. Thank you very much for this dream.”

Other winners this year included Viola Davis for The Help and Christopher Plummer for his supporting role in Beginners.

This was the eighteenth year that SAG has been holding this award ceremony.

Visit the Guild’s site for the complete listing of nominees and winners (http://www.sagawards.org/)