The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts announced the winners of its newly launched AACTA International Awards recognizing International Achievements in Film at an intimate awards Ceremony at Soho House. The Artist was awarded Best Film, lead actor, Jean Dujardin, was awarded Best Actor. Meryl Streep was awarded the AACTA International Award for Best Actress for her role in The Iron Lady. Meryl has attended the award, so pictures will be added later today. Thanks to Frank for the heads-up! Edit: Over 100 pictures from the event have been added to the image library.

No matter if Meryl will take home another Screen Actors Guild Award on Sunday or not, according to the SAG’s recent press release, she’ll take the stage anyway – as a presenter. The Screen Actors Guild Awards Executive Producer Jeff Margolis has announced that Actor® recipients including Tina Fey, Kevin Bacon, Kenneth Branagh, Jean Dujardin, John Krasinski, Kyra Sedgwick, Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams are to present at the 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. They join an already impressive list of actors who are honoring their colleagues, including Kyle Chandler, Patrick Duffy, Linda Gray, Judy Greer, Larry Hagman, Armie Hammer, Ed Helms, SAG President Ken Howard, Regina King, Julianna Margulies, Natalie Portman, Maya Rudolph, Octavia Spencer and Dick Van Dyke. The 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® will take place at the hrine Exposition Center in Los Angeles and be simulcast live on TNT as well as TBS on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012, at 8 p.m. (ET) / 5 p.m. (PT).

Congratulations to Meryl Streep for receiving a Best Actress Oscar nomination for “The Iron Lady”. She shares the category with Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs), Viola Davis (The Help), Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn). This is the seventeenth Academy Award nomination for Meryl Streep. “The Iron Lady” has received a further nomination for Makeup (Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland). The Academy Awards are handed out on February 26, 2012.

I am honored to be in company with such beautiful artists, and touched deeply by my fellow actors for their generosity in giving me this acknowledgment. (Meryl Streep, Entertainmnent Weekly)

Three new videos have been added to the archives – a live interview with Fox2News from today, a backstage interview after winning the Golden Globe on “The Insider”, and a film excerpt from “The Iron Lady”. Edit: An interview with Good Day L.A. has been added as well. Then, Meryl has won the London Critics Circle Film Award as Best Actress (tying with Anna Paquin for, ironically, “Margaret). She has also won the Dorian Award as Film Performance of the Year and has received nominations for the Iowa Film Critics Award and the Australian Academy Cinema Television Arts as Best International Actress. Thanks to Frank for the heads-up.

Congratulations to Meryl for receiving a BAFTA nomination as Leading Actress for “The Iron Lady”. She shares the category with Bérénice Bejo (The Artist), Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn), Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin) and Viola Davis (The Help). The film scored a total of four nominations, including Best Supporting Actor (Jim Broadbent), Original Screenplay (Abi Morgan) and for Make-Up and Hair. The Hollywood Reporter has Meryl’s reaction on the nomination: “Thrilling thrilling news! Not just for me, but for the film of which I am very proud, and for the hundreds of people who worked on it! Thanks, from a (New) Jersey girl…” Jim Broadbent, nominated in the supporting actor category for his portrayal of Denis Thatcher opposite Streep, gave a very British reaction. Said Broadbent: “Really exciting news. I couldn’t be more excited that a film that was such fun to make, is getting this recognition. It’s fantastic for all of us and I can’t wait for the party!” The BAFTAs will be handed out on February 12, 2012.

Pictures and videos from the Golden Globes keep coming in, so here’s another update on last night’s big event. Videos of Meryl’s press room interview, a segment from Access Hollywood – and an interview on the Today Show, which was taped a day before the Golden Globes took place, have been added to the video archive.

Then, many additional pictures have been added to the Golden Globe galleries, have a look at the previews below.

Here’s the complete transcript of her speech: “Oh my God. Oh my God. Well, when Ricky Gervais’ deal fell through and they came to me to play Margaret Thatcher… (laughter). I can’t joke. This is such a thrill, but really, really embarrassing in a year that saw so many extraordinary performances by women in leading roles – by my friends, by people I don’t know. By people that I am so inspired by… Oh, shiii-it (points to her table), I’ve forgot my glasses. Oh, I’m gonna have to remember my speech (laughter). Okay, I’m gonna have to remember, but Glenn, Viola – oh my God I’m gonna leave people off – Michelle, Rooney, Gilda, yeah and how about Adepero Oduye, how about “Pariah” (applause)? How about Michelle, how about Mia Wasikowska in “Jane Eyre”? (applause). Fantastic! Tilda. Oh geez. Everybody I know I’m gonna leave you out. Anyone of these performances in any given year would have been a stand-out and an award winning peformance. But the fact that they all this year is really, really good news for all of us, because sometimes it seems that serious, challenging, weird movies are like exotic birds, near extinct birds, and every year a new flock flies in and somebody picks them up and gives them money and we get to see them. So, I just wanna thank my agent Kevin Huvane and God – Harvey Weinstein (laughter) – the punisher. Old testament, I guess? (laughter) Okay, I gotta thank everybody in England that let me come and trample all over their history. Especially, I’d like to thank Phyllida Lloyd (music starts to fade in) – oh, no! Abi Morgan, who wrote it, Damien Jones, who stayed with us for ten years. Oh, come on. All the cast and crew in England. We’ve made this for twenty-five cents in five minutes and I’m so proud of the film and I’m so, so, so grateful. And I love you, Viola. You’re my girl.

Lastly, lots of additional pictures from the Golden Globe Awards have been added to the image library. You can access all galleries below. Edit: Screencaptures from the ceremony have been added as well.

Meryl Streep has won the Golden Globe as Best Actress in a Drama for “The Iron Lady”. Congratulations! Pictures from the red carpet, the ceremony and the press conference are being added to the image library, so keep checking back for all latest additions.

Meryl Streep stepped into the Golden Globes press room following her big win for The Iron Lady during this evening’s show. On stage she couldn’t give the speech she had planned since she forgot her glasses at the table, and while she almost gave it to the press room instead, she refrained. Instead, Meryl talked about women who inspire her, taking on the role of Margaret Thatcher, and what she’s working on now. On what she would ask Margaret Thatcher: “I would be interested in what she thinks about Europe right now and the debt crisis and whether her views about any of that have evolved. It’s interesting how it’s coming to the same path. It interests me”. On taking on the role: “Coming into this I had a very reductive view of Margret Thatcher. I did what we all do to political leaders we don’t agree with, turning them into something more than human and less than human at the same time. It was interesting to me to look at the human being behind all that, to look at the life that was so groundbreaking, in the winter of that life. To find a compassionate view of someone with whom I disagree”. On what inspires her: “I’ve never really gotten to the bottom of me and all the contradictions and conundrum that I find in my own personality and I feel like I find myself, or parts of myself, and I find some understanding of being alive from the characters I play. I’ve probably only gravitated towards characters I do feel something of me in”. What is your passion project right now: “I’m very interested in the stories of women, the untold stories, and I’m trying very hard to get congress to let us purchase land on the National Mall for the first women’s museum. There are so many stories, I could go on for hours”.

In a few hours, the Golden Globe Awards will be presented, and if you believe the oddsmakers and blogosphere, Meryl is having best chances to win Best Actress for “The Iron Lady”. She has made records already for nominations (twenty-six) and wins (seven), being honored quite early in her career – for “Kramer vs. Kramer”, “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” and “Sophie’s Choice” – and quite recent again – for “Adaptation”, “Angels in America”, “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Julie & Julia”. Part of the reason why Meryl has won more Globes than Oscars is because the Hollywood Foreign Press Association splits acting categories into Drama and Comedy – this way she scored two comedy prizes while the Academy Awards went with the Drama winners (Helen Mirren and Sandra Bullock). You’ll often read that the HFPA loves Meryl Streep and will nominate her for anything she’s doing, and while there might be a grain of truth to that, she has been overlooked just as often. Meryl was nominated almost every year throughout the 1990s, receiving 8 nominations in 10 years, without winning any.

Meryl has accepted four of her seven Golden Globes in person, and each of her acceptance speeches have been highlights. Have a look at her speeches by clicking the previews above.

Her stiffest competition this year is Viola Davis, having received praise from the press and critics awards. An actress who’s been working for fifteen years on film and television, Davis had her breakthrough four years ago, ironically opposite Meryl Streep in “Doubt”, for which she received her first Oscar nomination. If you recall the 2009 Screen Actors Guild Awards, Meryl shouted in her acceptance speech, that “someone please give her a movie!”. It happened, and my feeling tells me that, tonight, Viola will win the Golden Globe. What speaks for her is that “The Help” has been a critical and commercial success while “The Iron Lady” has won raves for Meryl’s performance but has received mixed reviews for the film (I personally think it’s about the individual performances, the films have their own categories). Whenever I read somewhere that Meryl is campaigning herself harder for an Oscar this year than any time before (instead of acknowledging that she’s promoting a film whose release falls into Oscar season), I feel reminded that she has taken every opportunity to praise Viola Davis and her performance. She’s certainly proud of her work, and, I assume, would be thrilled for her colleague to be recognized. That being said, I, and I’m sure the majority of you, would be just as thrilled to see Meryl taking the stage tonight. Rooting for actors at award ceremonies is the most nonsense and fun of it all. So let’s keep our fingers crossed for tonight.

Do you think Meryl is a lock for winning tonight? Share your thoughts in the comments!

The Weinstein Co. has created a series of unusual campaign-style posters to promote the film online and possibly in print as well. The intentionally defaced ads play off the idea that not everyone was in love with Thatcher in her home country, embracing the controversy she stirred in England, not shying away from it. It might seem odd to promote a film with an ad campaign that seems to disparage the movie’s subject, but it’s very much a play on Thatcher’s thorny relationship with many in her country during the time she served as prime minister (article courtesy Politico). Another new poster, probably for its wide release in the USA, has been added as well.

Also, with thanks to Frank for the heads-up, Meryl has been awarded Best Actress for “The Iron Lady” by the Denver Film Critics Society and has received a nomination as Best International Actress for the Irish Film and Television Award. Congratulations!