Seven of 2014’s most memorable actors received honors on Sunday night at the Arlington in a modestly attended but exuberant evening for the SBIFF. The Virtuosos Award at the Fest traditionally gathers together a group of breakout actors, rising stars, and veteran actors just now getting their due for a night of short interviews moderated by Dave Karger of Fandango. In previous years, SBIFF has had a problem at locking down some guests, with one year featuring four of the seven actors advertised. But to the Fest’s credit this year, all seven were on hand to talk about their exciting year.
The group was made up of Chadwick Boseman, who inhabited the role of soul music legend James Brown to an uncanny degree in “Get On Up”; Ellar Coltrane, the boy of “Boyhood” who audiences watched grow up on film over the course of its 12-year shoot; Logan Lerman, the child actor who grew up to hold his own against Brad Pitt on screen in “Fury”; David Oyelowo, the British actor who brought Martin Luther King Jr. to life in “Selma”; Rosamund Pike, another British actor who gave us the very American, very Machiavellian wife in “Gone Girl”; J.K. Simmons, the veteran actor who tossed aside many years of lovable fatherly supporting characters to bring viewers the intense and sadistic jazz teacher in “Whiplash”; and former SNL member Jenny Slate, who plays the comic and complex lead role in “The Obvious Child.”