An emotional Phoebe Waller-Bridge was an early winner at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The SAGs is one of the final major ceremonies before the Academy Awards and serves as a reliable indicator of Oscars success.
They are voted for by around 160,000 members of the actors’ union, which makes up a sizeable chunk of the Academy.
In the TV categories, Waller-Bridge picked up the outstanding performance by a female actor in a comedy series award and paid tribute to her castmates.
A beautiful moment 😍 #sagawards pic.twitter.com/zQqLNaKuHt
— SAG Awards® (@SAGawards) January 20, 2020
Accepting her prize, she said: “I normally try to be spontaneous in these speeches but I don’t trust myself not to be bleeped out so I wrote something down.
“The Fleabag team go back to the UK tomorrow, apart from Brett Gelman, who you get to keep. Lucky you.
“Thank you so much for being so supportive of our show on these shores.”
She added: “At some point, it will all hit me and I will have a good old cry about it.
“Tonight as a Fleabag gang we will soak this up… in a room I never imagined I would be in.
“This whole thing really has been a dream and if I wake up tomorrow and discover it has been just that then thank you, it has been the most beautiful dream.”
Waller-Bridge won ahead of Dead To Me’s Christina Applegate, Rachel Brosnahan and Alex Borstein for The Marvellous Mrs Maisel and Catherine O’Hara for Schitt’s Creek.
While Fleabag has enjoyed a phenomenally successful awards season, it failed to win a clean sweep of awards after losing the ensemble prize to The Marvellous Mrs Maisel.
The announcement was widely seen as an upset, with Maisel’s Alex Borstein admitting her surprise on stage, saying she voted for Fleabag.
“This makes no sense,” she said.
Tony Shalhoub takes home the Actor® for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series! #sagawards pic.twitter.com/u4RjHf007f
— SAG Awards® (@SAGawards) January 20, 2020
Fleabag’s Andrew Scott also missed out on a win. Scott, who plays the “hot priest” in the BBC show, was beaten by Maisel’s Tony Shalhoub.
Shalhoub dedicated the win to his late co-star Brian Tarantina, who died in November.
Ahead of the ceremony, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Jay Roach’s Bombshell dominated the nominations in the film categories.
For TV, Netflix’s regal drama The Crown, Stranger Things and Game Of Thrones were all nominated.