Kidman and Crowe take top Golden Globe awards

The hyperactive musical, Moulin Rouge, was named best musical or comedy movie and took two other awards at the Golden Globes ceremony in Hollywood, while the schizophrenia drama A Beautiful Mind also claimed three.

Moulin Rouge star Nicole Kidman won best actress in a musical or comedy Sunday night for playing a romantic cabaret singer, and composer Craig Armstrong won best original score, even though most of the music in the film was derived from famous pop songs.

‘‘My hands are shaking,’’ Kidman said. ‘‘This is really, really special because I never thought I’d be in a musical let alone win an award for one.’’

Russell Crowe won best dramatic actor for the role of mentally ill mathematician John Nash in A Beautiful Mind.

Sissy Spacek won best dramatic actress for the dark drama In the Bedroom.

Gene Hackman, who did not attend the ceremony, won the comedy actor Globe for his performance as the conniving head of a family of former child prodigies in The Royal Tenenbaums.

Supporting actor honours went to performers who played supportive spouses in two true-life dramas about ailing geniuses.

Jennifer Connelly won for portraying Nash’s dedicated wife in A Beautiful Mind, which also earned the screenplay Globe for Akiva Goldsman.

Britain’s Jim Broadbent claimed the supporting actor trophy for playing the husband of novelist Iris Murdoch, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, in Iris.

Robert Altman won best director for his murder-mystery satire Gosford Park, which chronicles the scandals of aristocrats through the eyes of their servants.

‘‘I don’t know what a best director is, except that (it is) someone who stands in the same space with the best actors,’’ Altman said. ‘‘I feel that they do the work and I get to watch. And nothing is better than that.’’

Sting was the victor in the movie song category for his romantic waltz ‘‘Until ...,’’ from the comedy Kate & Leopold.

The ceremony, hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is considered by some to be a barometer for the Academy Awards in March.

It also showed that Hollywood is largely maintaining a toned-down attitude since September 11. Absent were the outrageous antics or remarks that have given the Globes notoriety.

In the television categories, HBO’s ‘‘Sex and the City’’ took the best comedy prize and star Sarah Jessica Parker won for comedic actress.

Charlie Sheen got the comedy actor award for ABC’s Spin City.

‘‘This is so surreal. This is like a sober acid trip,’’ joked Sheen, a recovering drug abuser.

HBO’s World War II drama Band of Brothers won best miniseries, and Tom Hanks, who co-produced the project, accepted the award on behalf of the veterans depicted in the film.

‘‘They’re all either at home or in heaven and we do this to bring attention to them,’’ Hanks said.

Judy Davis received the miniseries actress award for ABC’s Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows and James Franco the miniseries actor prize for TNT’s James Dean.

Harrison Ford, star of the Indiana Jones adventures and the original Star Wars trilogy, took home the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award.

‘‘In anticipation of tonight, I wrote two speeches a long one and a short one,’’ the soft-spoken Ford joked. ‘‘Because I thought it might be a long evening, I’ll give you the short one: Thank you. But it seems there might be enough time for the long one as well, which is: Thank you very much.’’