Remote Royalty: Here Are the Results of the 78th Golden Globe Awards

The results are in! Several of the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts alumni and current stars were nominated for the Golden Globes this year. The 78th was a special one. The awards ceremony took place virtually on Sunday, February 28, with Amy Poehler broadcasting live from the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, and Tina Fey from the Rainbow Room in New York, New York. While the honored talents joined in remotely, the socially distanced live audiences were made up of first responders and essential workers. Here’s what we Potter fans have to celebrate.

While the chess pieces were not enchanted, Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley) has a reason to jump for joy, because the Best Television Motion Picture award went to the Netflix limited series The Queen’s Gambit, in which he plays the grandmaster Harry Beltik. However, it’s checkmate for our future Gellert Grindelwald, Mads Mikkelsen, in the Best Picture – Foreign Language category, where Another Round lost to Minari.

Harry Beltik (Harry Melling) plays chess against Beth Harmon (Anna Taylor-Joy) in “The Queen’s Gambit.” (Credit: Netflix)

While Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange of the Harry Potter films), who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Television), wasn’t one of the three stars who were awarded for their performances in the Netflix original series The Crown, the show itself got the Best Drama Series win for the third time this year. This comes after the series’ fourth season premiered in November 2020, the last one with Olivia Colman in the role of Queen Elizabeth II before Imelda Staunton (Professor Umbridge) takes over the throne.

We have had our eyes on another Black family member this year, one who has given an incredible performance as Herman J. Mankiewicz in Mank. With a leading six nominations among motion pictures, we had high hopes for this movie. Alas, Gary Oldman (Sirius Black) was not the one to take home (or rather, remotely accept) the Globe for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. In a heartfelt tribute, the late and great Chadwick Boseman was recognized posthumously for playing Levee Green in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Gary Oldman goes back to 1930s Hollywood as Herman J. Mankiewicz in “Mank.” (Credit: Netflix)

Mank was also nominated for Best Picture Drama along with The Trial of the Chicago 7, which stars Eddie Redmayne (Newt Scamander in the Fantastic Beasts films). While both movies are excellent, they were bested by Nomadland in this category as well as for Best Director Motion Picture, for which Mank was also nominated. However, for penning The Trial of the Chicago 7, Aaron Sorkin did win Best Screenplay Motion Picture, a category in which the late Mank screenwriter Jack Fincher was also in the running along with two living women (Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman and Chloé Zhao for Nomadland) and Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller for The Father.

Brendan Gleeson (Mad-Eye Moody) was nominated for Best Supporting Actor – Television for his portrayal of Donald Trump in The Comey Rule, but this award went to John Boyega for Small Axe.

Four of the five nominees for Best Score Motion Picture have Harry Potter cast and crew connections. These include Alexandre Desplat (the composer for both Deathly Hallows movies) for The Midnight Sky, Fantastic Beasts composer James Newton Howard for News of the World, Ludwig Göransson for Tenet, starring Sir Kenneth Branagh (Gilderoy Lockhart), Clémence Poésy (Fleur Delacour), and Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory), and Mank soundtrack creators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The eventual winners of this category were Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross for the animated feature film Soul.

All in all, there were some surprises and snubs as ever. However, given the current state of the world, we are just happy to have a belated kickoff to the awards season that we definitely took for granted in years prior. Who else dressed up fancy just to lounge on the couch and stream the ceremony? Was it just us? Okay…

Congratulations to winners and nominees alike. We’re off to play some wizard chess now.