Sam Mendes admitted it was a "big surprise" to win Best Director at the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday (05.01.20).
Sam Mendes
The '1917' filmmaker doesn't think any other director can match the work of fellow nominee Martin Scorsese - who was shortlisted for 'The Irishman' - so couldn't believe he was given the honour ahead of him or the others in the category, Bong Joon-ho ('Parasite'), Todd Phillips ('Joker') and Quentin Tarantino ('Once Upon a Time in Hollywood').
He said: "That is a big surprise, there is not one director in the room, not one in the world that is not in the shadow of Martin Scorsese.
"Too many people to thank, everyone at Universal, Amblin, Republic, three extraordinary producers, two extraordinary actors, Charles and Dean, we built the movie around you. And incredible cast and crew."
Sam went on to thank his spouse Ally for her support and dedicated the win for his war movie to his late grandfather.
He added: "I want to say thank you to my wife Ally for her love and support, without who I would never have sat and wrote this. Finally I'd like to dedicate this to my grandfather, Alfred Hubert Mendes, who inspired this film. He signed up for the first world war aged 17 and I hope he's looking down on us and I fervently hope it doesn't happen again."
Earlier in the evening, Quentin picked up an award of his own for Best Screenplay for 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' and joked he didn't need to thank anyone, before singing the praise of cast members Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie.
He said: "Normally with a writing award, you don't share the script with someone else, you do it yourself so I kind of don't have anyone to thank. I did it.
"But this time, more than usually most, I had a fantastic cast, it's not just a BS fantastic cast, it was a fantastic cast who took it from a page and added a different layer, whether it was Leo in the trailer or Brad's acid flashback or Margot's goodness, which put more goodness in a movie than I've ever been involved with.
"So I want to thank you so much and my wife who's watching from Tel Aviv, who's pregnant with my very first child."
Tagged in Martin Scorsese Quentin Tarantino Sam Mendes