In this article: Backstage pass: Terrence Howard

SAG AWARDS

Going for the Guild

By Kathy Rowings

Hollywood's biggest names will walk the red carpet Sunday to recognize 2007's best film and TV performances and, more important, to honor the union that protects their livelihoods. That union is the Screen Actors Guild, which working actors -- from newcomers like "Gone Baby Gone's" Amy Ryan to established stars such as Richard Gere -- rely on for security.

"Actors need health insurance, dental insurance, things like that, too," says TV star Patricia Heaton, a SAG member for 24 years. "It's not like we all work at a company in the same building. We work one day here or get nine years on a sitcom -- you never really know."

Actors, like coal miners and electricians, are laborers of a kind who need protection from unfair practices. That's why, 75 years ago, Hollywood's biggest stars banded together to seek better working conditions. They "took a huge risk in starting a guild," says Kathy Connell, who is producing Sunday's SAG Awards. "The studios had all the control, and actors had awful working conditions. Boris Karloff worked 25 hours straight on the set of "Frankenstein," and Ginger Rogers put in 20-hour days."

Getting the guild off the ground wasn't easy. Leading men such as Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Cary Grant met secretly to discuss it. Beautiful starlets like Gloria Stuart risked their careers by affiliating with the upstart crowd. They all knew a guild was important.

On the guild's 75th anniversary, USA WEEKEND asked some current SAG members to share tales about their paths to becoming an actor.

Keira Knightley, "Atonement"
"I asked for an agent at 3. Agents were calling my parents (dad is an actor, mom is a playwright), and I was upset that I didn't have one. I literally asked for an agent every day from 3 to 6 and was extremely annoyed and annoying. I finally got my way, and here I am."

Don Cheadle, "Talk to Me"
"In fifth grade, I was Templeton the Rat in a production of "Charlotte's Web." I remember I had a friend who worked in a doughnut shop. I'd go in, get a doughnut and sit there with my script, going over my lines and making notes in the margin. I was serious!"

America Ferrera, "Ugly Betty"
"In high school, my best friend and I worked at a Malibu ranch that put on company picnics. The crux of our job was building balloon arches and hosting things like bingo. So those are special talents I have: I know how to blow up balloon arches, and I'm very good at hosting bingo."

Ellen Page, "Juno"
"I was in music class when a local casting director came looking for people to audition for a TV movie. I had brown hair and was the right age, 10. It was supposed to be one neat little experience and not turn into a series. But all of a sudden, acting was what I loved to do. I remember falling in love with it when I was 15 or 16. It was fun then, and it's still incredibly fun. I've often thought, 'What if I'd been sick that day?' "

Amy Adams, "Enchanted"
"As a child, my fantasies were filled with dancing and singing. I liked movies, but I wasn't aware that being an actor in the movies could happen. I wasn't impressed with the Oscars either. The first time I watched, "Gandhi" won over "E.T." I thought, 'What kind of awards show is this?' "

Kelsey Grammer, "Back to You"
"When I was 21, I was painting offices for a famous director. As I stood at the top of a ladder, the casting director of the San Diego Shakespeare Festival looked up at me and -- I don't know how he got this from my butt -- said, 'You're an actor, aren't you?' He offered me a chance to audition but said I had to come out under my own steam. I called my grandmother and said, 'Gam, can you front me $50?' for a $49 airfare. Three days later, I was headed for San Diego. I slept behind the theater for a little while until I finally got an apartment. I was making $65 a week, and those were flush times, indeed."

Mindy Kaling, "The Office"
"When we were at the SAG Awards last year, my boyfriend and I were sitting at a table two seats over from "The Departed" cast, and "The Sopranos" were right next to them. Then, "The Office" won, and somehow "The Departed" didn't. I remember just looking up and walking by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon, and thinking, 'How am I the recipient of a SAG Award and these guys are not?' "

Ray Wise, "Reaper"
"If you look at my junior high yearbook, under my picture it says my goal is to be a professional actor. My mother said that when I was 2 years old, I stood on the corner of our street and sang opera. When I was 9 or 10, my buddy across the street and I charged neighbors a dime to come watch our magic show. And the first play I did, in the fourth grade, I was a Christmas tree. I was wearing a lot of lights. I think that's what sparked it for me."

Lisa Edelstein, "House"
"I got my SAG card for an Oliver Stone movie, 'The Doors.' I was Jim Morrison's makeup artist backstage at "The Ed Sullivan Show." And I had to speak -- if I didn't speak, I wouldn't get my SAG card -- so he told me to just make something up, which I did, but I realized I'd made up a really short line. So every take, I made my line longer, until finally I got yelled at. He said, 'You're stopping the whole scene with your line!' and I had to go back to that first line I made up."

Richard Gere, "I'm Not There"
"My brothers and sisters and I used to do shows for our parents after dinner. I was 4 or 5. I did impressions and little soft-shoe routines. I played trumpet in the school band and taught myself the piano and guitar."

Casey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
"My mother's best friend in college was a casting director in Cambridge, Mass., where I grew up. On weekends, she brought me and my friends in so we could stand in the background of films like "The Good Mother," which was shot in Boston, and get $15. So I became acquainted with the process of auditioning and making movies. This was before the indie film boom, and film was still mysterious. Then in high school, I had a very good theater teacher, who had already inspired Matt Damon and my brother. He made me want to be an actor."

Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
"I knew acting was what I wanted to do at a very young age, in sixth grade. That's when my mother took mysisters and me to see "A Chorus Line." For the first time, we had really good seats, and it was wonderfully overwhelming. When I graduated high school and started working right afterwards in Biloxi Blues, I knew acting was what my life was going to be."

Patricia Heaton, "Back to You"
"I got my SAG card in New York in 1984 when I did a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer commercial with Jason Alexander and Polly Draper, before he was in "Seinfeld" and she was in "thirtysomething." He had been doing plays in New York; she was doing a lot of theater, too. I played a waitress in a bar. At the end, I whispered something into Jason Alexander's ear -- he fainted and fell out of the shot. I was really chubby and had a bad Farrah Fawcett hairdo. I looked like a real corn-fed Midwestern girl."

Emily Procter, "CSI: Miami"
"I got so dressed up for my first meeting with an agent: I had onpantyhose, pearls, a headband, and I think I even took a briefcase. They handed me paperwork to fill out, which was, 'What kind of outfits do you have?' And I was like, 'Tennis outfit? Got it.' I checked all these costumes, basically, and Charlie Messenger, the agent, asked me how I'd like to go to work the next day. 'Herman's Head' was shooting, and he thought they could use me in the office scenes. I was two weeks in and just thought, 'I've made it!' "

Contributing: Lorrie Lynch, Nancy Mills, Bart Mills

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BACKSTAGE PASS: Terrence Howard

Before Terrence Howard became one of today's busiest actors and a member of the Screen Actors Guild, he was a meter reader for Cleveland Public Power and a reservations agent for Pan American World Airways, both of which worked with powerful unions. While employed by Pan Am in the New York building now owned by MetLife, Howard used the perk of free flights to get to L.A. for auditions, most of which he says he "crashed"; he didn't have an agent.

Now, he has four movies on the way, including "Iron Man," based on the Marvel Comics strip, opening May 2 and expected to be a summer blockbuster. He'll play Lt. Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes and co-star with Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. Also upcoming is "Fighting," opening later this year, in which he plays a veteran street fighter. First, however, he's heading to Broadway for an all-black revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." He'll play Brick, an alcoholic, aging football star, alongside James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad and Anika Noni Rose.

Howard says he had always dreamed of working as steadily as he is now, even when he had nothing to go on. "My first résumé was absolutely false," he says. "I put everything on there that I thought I was going to do one day. As I got a job, I would take a falsehood off. My first résumé was two pages long. Two pages of the future. It was what I was going to do, what I believed I was going to do."

Cover and cover story photographs by Robert Sebree for USA WEEKEND