Michelle Williams shared the love with her fiancé, Thomas Kail, as she delivered yet another empowering speech at the 26th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, January 19.
The 39-year-old actress scored her second huge win this awards season as she was named the Best Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series for her role as Gwen Verdon in FX’s Fosse/Verdon. As she took the stage to accept her award, she reflected on the choices she made early on in her career that led her to where she is today.
“When I was 12, in between extra work and the occasional infomercial, I had the good fortune to be in a movie with Sir Ben Kingsley. He said something to me I still think about. He said, ‘I don’t like to act. It is very lonely. I like to react,'” Williams said. “I’ve felt that loneliness, and we have all felt that loneliness. Sometimes you are in a scene and doing a monologue. Sometimes you are in a scene with somebody else, but you feel like you are doing a monologue.”
The Oscar winner then applauded her costar Sam Rockwell. “Sometimes you are acting with someone and their ego, and that is very lonely. And sometimes you are acting with a dog. And sometimes you get so damn lucky that you find yourself opposite Sam Rockwell. I found Gwen by looking at Bob. There he was looking back at me, always telling me the truth in exquisite detail. I could believe that I was Gwen because I knew that you were Bob.”
As Williams concluded her speech, she gave a loving shoutout to her family for supporting her along the way. “You never know where you are going from or where you are going to. I never felt that inside of Nicole Fosse. Our dance team and music team and the hair and makeup. Tom, I share this with you. Matilda, it is one thing to be completely honest as an actor, it is another to be completely honest as a human being. That is just who you are and how you live. You teach me by being you. I love you and I am coming home,” she said.
The pregnant actress’ inspiring moment comes two weeks after she stunned the audience at the 2020 Golden Globes with her powerful speech advocating for women’s rights.
“As women and as girls things can happen to our bodies that are not our choice. I’ve tried my very best to live a life of my own making and not just a series of events that happened to me,” the Dawson’s Creek alum said as she accepted the second Golden Globe of her career. “I wouldn’t have been able to do this without employing a woman’s right to choose. To choose when to have my children and with whom.”
On December 30, Us Weekly confirmed that the Manchester by the Sea star is engaged to Kail, 42, and that the pair are expecting their first child together. The Tony winner worked closely with Williams as director and producer of Fosse/Verdon.
A source later told Us that the start of their relationship was “messy behind the scenes,” as both Williams and Kail were seeing other people when they first met. At the time, the Oscar winner was newly married to musician Phil Elverum, from whom she split in April 2019. The Hamilton director, for his part, had been married to actress Angela Christian since 2006.
The duo “fell hard and fast for each other” after their respective splits. According to a second insider, they hope to tie the knot before they welcome their little one.
Williams also shares daughter Matilda, 14, with the late Heath Ledger.
