Actor Daniel Day-Lewis dedicated the Screen Actors Guild Award he received during Sunday’s ceremony to Heath Ledger, calling him “unique” and “perfect.”

The 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards took place Sunday, Jan. 27, in Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium and it was a time for television and film actors to remember the prematurely deceased Heath Ledger.

Daniel Day-Lewis was honored Sunday as leading actor for his portrayal of a ruthless oil tycoon in “There Will Be Blood” and he gave a moving acceptance speech upon receiving the trophy. The 50-year-old actor dedicated his award to Heath Ledger.

“In ‘Brokeback Mountain’ he was unique, he was perfect,” Day-Lewis said of the role that earned the 28-year-old Ledger an Academy Award nomination in 2006. “That scene in the trailer at the end of the film is as moving as anything I think I've ever seen.”

Day-Lewis said it was other actors’ work that inspired him in his own acting experience and gave him “a sense of wonderment, of renewal” and named Ledger as one who gave him a “sense of regeneration.”

“There are many actors in this room tonight including my fellow nominees who've given me that sense of regeneration. Heath Ledger gave it to me,” he said.

Day-Lewis told the Associated Press backstage that he had never met the young Australian actor, but that he felt he would have liked him.

“I thought he was beautiful. I just had a very strong feeling I would have liked him very much as a man,” he said. “I admired him very much. I'm absolutely certain he would have done many wonderful things in his life.”

The SAG award show’s in memoriam segment concluded with a photo of Heath Ledger as the quiet, brooding Ennis Del Mar, his Academy Award-nominated role in Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain.”

The ceremony was nevertheless marred by religious protesters that gathered outside the Shrine Auditorium, with signs that read “Heath’s in Hell.” Three years after the release of the controversial film and some people still gripe about it.

“We should leave him alone and we should leave his family alone to suffer their unimaginable grief in private, and it's not going to happen,” Day-Lewis told the AP of the protesters. “We should just stop encouraging people to have greater and greater interest in raking over every detail, which is none of our business anyhow.”

Ledger was found dead last Tuesday, Jan. 22 in his New York apartment. The cause of death has not been determined yet; toxicology test results will be known within the following two weeks.