BEVERLY HILLS–The victor was “Chernobyl” at the 77th annual Golden Globe awards as it bested its competitors in the best limited series or motion picture made for television category.
Its writer and creator Craig Mazin accepted the Globe before an audience of film and television stars at the Beverly Hilton Hotel Sunday night.
Stellan Skarsgard also won a Globe for his role in “Chernobyl” in the best supporting actor in a series or television motion picture category.
“This was a fantastic material and great opportunity. It starts with the script and ends with the script,” said Skarsgard in accepting his award.
The film’s other performers, Jared Harris and Emily Watson, failed to score Globes.
The epic story became the critics’ favorite the moment it was released last year. For the golden statuette it competed with “Catch-22,” by George Clooney; “Fosse/Vernon,” a Broadway bio; and “The Loudest Voice,” another real-life tale.
“Chernobyl” established its creator Mazin as a serious storyteller. For this comedy screenwriter, best-known for the zany “Hangover” sequels, “Chernobyl” proved to be the opportunity of a lifetime.
“On behalf of the hundreds of artists and crafts people from Lithuania, the U.K., France, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Iceland and Ukraine, plus exactly three Americans, who worked so passionately to bring you this production, I thank you,” Mazin said.
“Sometimes, the only thing that can make us see past our differences is tragedy. Tragedy doesn’t care about our borders. It makes a mockery of them. It comes in a plume of deadly smoke that drifts over Ukrainians, and then Belarussians and then across all of Europe,” he told The Moscow Times.
“Sometimes, it’s art that helps us best understand these moments in history,” he added. “So many of you have been part of the ‘Chernobyl’ conversation and I am deeply grateful for that.”
The evenings other top winners included war epic “1917” as the best drama and “Once Upon A Time…in Hollywood” as best comedy.
This article has been updated with a report from our correspondent.
