LOS ANGELES - What had looked like a predictable Academy Awards season grew more intriguing with a few surprise winners at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The ensemble drama "Crash" beat out Oscar best-picture front-runner "Brokeback Mountain" Sunday for the overall cast honor, the guild's equivalent of a best-film prize.

Reese Witherspoon as singer June Carter in "Walk the Line" won best actress over her fellow Golden Globe winner and presumed Oscar favorite Felicity Huffman of the road-trip tale "Transamerica."

And Paul Giamatti of the boxing drama "Cinderella Man" earned the guild's supporting-actor honor over George Clooney of the oil-industry thriller "Syriana."

Clooney had won the Golden Globe and, coupled with the goodwill of his directing achievement on the Edward R. Murrow tale "Good Night, and Good Luck," he has had the look of a mega-star destined for Oscar triumph.

Even Sandra Bullock - whose co-stars in "Crash" include Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton, Terrence Howard and Jennifer Esposito - expressed mild wonder backstage about the outcome.

"I'm still a little surprised. Not that they won," Bullock said, referring to her co-stars, "but that I was part of the group that won."

"Crash" follows the lives of a far-flung cast of characters over a chaotic 36-hour period in Los Angeles.

The guild's other film prizes were more predictable. Philip Seymour Hoffman took the best-actor prize for his role as author Truman Capote in "Capote," and Rachel Weisz earned the supporting-actress honor for the murder thriller "The Constant Gardener," in which she plays a rabble-rousing humanitarian-aid worker.

Hoffman said backstage that awards are nice but pale next to the thrill of landing those first parts and simply putting in a good day's work.

"It doesn't get any better than when you get a job as an actor. When that happens you think that's like IT. You're more high than you will ever be for the rest of your life," said Hoffman, who noted his head was in the clouds when he landed a role in "Scent of a Woman" at age 24. "I don't think I've ever been more joyful since that moment."

He and Weisz, who also won Golden Globes for their roles, have now established themselves as the actors to beat at this year's Academy Awards. Oscar nominees will be announced Tuesday, with the awards presented March 5.

"Brokeback Mountain" has been considered the Oscar front-runner. Its loss to "Crash" could prove a speed-bump on the film's path toward becoming the first explicitly gay-themed movie to win a best picture Oscar, but it has dominated earlier Hollywood honors, so it likely remains the favorite.

Last year, "Sideways" won SAG's ensemble prize, but "Million Dollar Baby" went on to take the best-picture Oscar.

Directed by Ang Lee, who won the Directors Guild of America honor Saturday, "Brokeback Mountain" stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as sheep-herding buddies whose summer of love turns into a lifelong affair they conceal from their wives.

"Brokeback Mountain" earned the Golden Globe for best drama, but it was shut out at the actors guild honors, where Ledger, Gyllenhaal and co-star Michelle Williams all had been nominated.

At the Globes, Huffman earned the best dramatic actress trophy for "Transamerica," in which she plays a man preparing for sex-change surgery who ends up on a road trip with the son she never knew she had fathered.

Witherspoon also won the Golden Globe, for best actress in a musical or comedy, for her portrayal of Carter, the love of country legend Johnny Cash's life.

She and co-star Joaquin Phoenix, who plays Cash, handled their own vocals in "Walk the Line," though neither had any background as singers.

"I wanted to be a country and western singer when I was a little girl," said Witherspoon, who convinced her parents to send her to a singing camp when she was 10. The camp's organizers told her that whatever she did, "please don't sing ever again."

"So it was really a little seed they planted in my mind that this was something I should never do," she recalled.

When she first accepted the role, she told director James Mangold she would not sing. Mangold later persuaded her, and "this film became a great way to conquer that fear," she added.

Though she lost the movie prize, Huffman did win the guild award for best-actress in a television comedy series for "Desperate Housewives," the role that earned her an Emmy last year and lifted her to stardom after years of taking bit parts in films and toiling in failed TV shows. "Desperate Housewives" also won the ensemble prize for comedy shows.

Huffman said her big year hasn't translated into more acting offers, but she added she is thankful to finally have steady work.

"It happened for me so late. I'm such an old broad, and I've had so many times where I haven't worked for a long time," the 43-year-old said. "So you get a deep sense of gratitude embedded in your bones."

A complete list of winners of the 12th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards:

Movies:

Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Capote."

Actress: Reese Witherspoon, "Walk the Line."

Supporting actor: Paul Giamatti, "Cinderella Man."

Supporting actress: Rachel Weisz, "The Constant Gardener."

Ensemble cast: "Crash."

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Television:

Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries: Paul Newman, "Empire Falls."

Actress in a Television Movie or Miniseries: S. Epatha Merkerson, "Lackawanna Blues."

Actor in a Drama Series: Kiefer Sutherland, "24."

Actress in a Drama Series: Sandra Oh, "Grey's Anatomy."

Actor in a Comedy Series: Sean Hayes, "Will & Grace."

Actress in a Comedy Series: Felicity Huffman, "Desperate Housewives."

Drama ensemble: "Lost."

Comedy ensemble: "Desperate Housewives."

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Lifetime Achievement: Shirley Temple Black.

On the Net:

Guild Awards: http://www.sagawards.com