DHAKA: The cast of 1970s crime caper ‘American Hustle’ have taken the top prize at the Screen Actors Guild awards.

Representing his co-stars, Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams and Christian Bale, actor Bradley Cooper praised film director David O Russell.

‘He is an actor’s director,’ he said, reports the BBC.

‘That notion is tossed around. He is the embodiment of it.’

As actors form the biggest voting bloc in the Oscars, the SAG awards are seen as a key indicator for that ceremony.

Last year, the guild chose hostage drama Argo for its top honour, with that film going on to receive the Academy Award for best picture.

However, this year’s field is more competitive, with ‘12 Years a Slave’ and ‘Gravity’ expected to give ‘American Hustle’s A-list cast a run for their money when the Oscars roll around on 2 March.

Newcomer Lupita Nyong’o, who plays an abused plantation worker in ‘12 Years a Slave’, was given the best supporting actress award by SAG voters.

The Kenyan actress also thanked her director, British film-maker Steve McQueen, ‘for taking a flashlight and shining it underneath the floorboards of this nation and reminding us what it is we stand on’.

She also recounted the story of phoning her father to tell him she had got the part.

‘`Daddy, do you know who Brad Pitt is? I’m going to be in a movie with him!’ she recalled.

‘And he said, ‘I don’t know him personally but I’m glad you got a job.’

Both best actor and best supporting actor went to the stars of Dallas Buyers Club, a small film that cost just $4m to make.

BDST: 1845 HRS, JAN 19, 2014
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor