30th Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards: ‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘The Bear,’ ‘Beef’ Take Top Wins, Lily Gladstone Makes History
Oppenheimer was the big winner of the 30th Screen Actors Guild Award winning three of its four nominations: Cast in a Motion Picture, Male Actor in a Leading Role for Cillian Murphy and Male Actor in a Supporting Role for Robert Downey Jr. The $950M box office smash has 13 Oscar nominations and is the favorite in several categories, including Best Picture. The film joins the likes of American Beauty, Chicago, The Help and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri as triple SAG Award winners. American Beauty and Chicago both went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars as well as individual acting honors.
While Downey Jr. and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) continued their season sweeps, the lead races have been a little more back and forth. Murphy’s win here along with his BAFTA and Golden Globe wins puts him in the best shape possible to turn them into Oscar gold. But Lily Gladstone’s triumph here over BAFTA, Golden Globe and Critics Choice winner Emma Stone (Poor Things) is the most notable. Not only does it make Gladstone the first Native American woman to win the SAG Award for lead actress, but following up with her Golden Globe win puts her in the same place that eventual Oscar winners Halle Berry and Michelle Yeoh were before winning the Oscar, the first Black actress and Chinese actress to win, respectively. In the 30 years of the SAG Awards, the winner here went on to win the Oscar 21 times. Recent winners who failed to secure the Oscar include Viola Davis (twice, for The Help and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and Glenn Close for The Wife.
In her speech, which she began in Blackfeet like her Golden Globes speech, she said “We bring empathy into a world that needs it,” urging those in the room and at home, whether they want to be actors or not to “keep speaking your truth.”
The Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture winner was Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. It is the third nomination and first win for the series. Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick won this last year. The Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series went to The Last of Us.
In television, The Bear and its stars Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri continued their sweeps for with wins here at SAG following Golden Globe, Critics Choice and Emmy wins last month. Due to different eligibility periods between the Emmys and SAG (and the lateness of the former), White and Edebiri’s Globe, Critics Choice and SAG wins were for season two while their Emmy wins were for season one.
Ali Wong and Steven Yeun also repeated their wins for Beef with the awards for television movies or limited series, sweeping the Globes, Critics Choice, Emmys and now SAG. In a surprise win over Emmy and Golden Globe winner Kieran Culkin for Succession, Pedro Pascal won Male Actor in a Drama Series for The Last of Us, his first. “This is wrong for so many reasons,” Pascal said. “I’m a little drunk. I thought I could get drunk. I’m making a fool of myself but thank you so much for this! I’ve been in the union since 1999 so this is an incredible fucking honor. To the nominees, all of you, I can’t remember any of your names right now. I’m going to have a panic attack now.” Elizabeth Debicki won Female Actor in a Drama Series for her portrayal of Princess Diana in the final season of The Crown but Succession returned to win its second Drama Ensemble SAG Award.
As previously announced, the legendary actor, singer, producer, writer, and director Barbra Streisand will be honored with the SAG Life Achievement Award for career achievements and humanitarian accomplishments and presented by SAG Award-winning star Jennifer Aniston and Bradley Cooper. Aniston remarked that the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall, the home of the SAG Awards tonight, was where Streisand performed her first concert back in 1963.
“This is such a wonderful award to get because you know in advance you’re going to get it. You don’t have to sit there in squirm… And if you don’t have to put on such a happy face, ‘I’m so happy to lose!’ Anyway, you all know what I mean,” she joked. She continued, reminiscing on being a Screen Actors Guild member for over 60 years, “I can’t believe it. I remember dreaming of being an actress as a teenager, sitting in my bed in Brooklyn with a pint of coffee ice cream and a movie magazine.”
These are the first SAG Awards since the historical 118-day strike that spanned July to November last year. Idris Elba, who opened and closed the non-hosted show made remarks of gratitude to the union and SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher in her president’s speech challenged the evils and inhumanity of AI and gave thanks and respect to the union saying, “You survived the longest strike in our union’s history with courage and conviction.”
The 30th SAG Awards, produced by SAG-AFTRA and Silent House Productions, streamed live globally on Netflix in the first year of their new deal to host the SAG Awards and while the show went off without a technical hitch elements of the show turned out to be less successful. At a tight two hours without commercials, while they left room for speeches with no time limits or playoff music and clips for every category, the breakaways to red carpet host Tan France stopped the proceedings to a dead halt, feeling very out of place and discordant with the flow of the show. Reunions of the casts of The Devil Wears Prada and Modern Family were bizarrely staged and executed with an acrostic poem into by the Breaking Bad cast turning into a free for all where Bob Odenkirk barked “I’m not reading this fucking thing” before the cast trying to right the track and deliver the television cast award. The show be available to stream on Netflix for 28 days, with or without commercials depending your ad-supported or ad-free subscription plan.
Here is the complete list of the 30th Screen Actors Guild Award winners.
FILM NOMINEES
Cast in a Motion Picture
American Fiction
Barbie
The Color Purple
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer – WINNER
Male Actor in a Leading Role — Motion Picture
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer – WINNER
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Female Actor in a Leading Role — Motion Picture
Annette Bening, Nyad
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Margot Robbie, Barbie
Emma Stone, Poor Things
Male Actor in a Supporting Role — Motion Picture
Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction
Willem Dafoe, Poor Things
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey, Jr., Oppenheimer – WINNER
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Female Actor in a Supporting Role — Motion Picture
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Penélope Cruz, Ferrari
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers – WINNER
Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
Barbie
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
John Wick: Chapter 4
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One – WINNER
TELEVISION NOMINEES
Drama Series Ensemble
The Crown
The Gilded Age
The Last of Us
The Morning Show
Succession – WINNER
Comedy Series Ensemble
Abbott Elementary
Barry
The Bear – WINNER
Only Murders in the Building
Ted Lasso
Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series
Matt Bomer, Fellow Travelers
Jon Hamm, Fargo
David Oyelowo, Lawmen: Bass Reeves
Tony Shalhoub, Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie
Steven Yeun, Beef – WINNER
Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series
Uzo Aduba, Painkiller
Kathryn Hahn, Tiny Beautiful Things
Brie Larson, Lessons in Chemistry
Bel Powley, A Small Light
Ali Wong, Beef – WINNER
Male Actor in a Drama Series
Brian Cox, Succession
Billy Crudup, The Morning Show
Kieran Culkin, Succession
Matthew Macfadyen, Succession
Pedro Pascal, The Last of Us – WINNER
Female Actor in a Drama Series
Jennifer Aniston, The Morning Show
Elizabeth Debicki, The Crown – WINNER
Bella Ramsey, The Last of Us
Keri Russell, The Diplomat
Sarah Snook, Succession
Male Actor in a Comedy Series
Brett Goldstein, Ted Lasso
Bill Hader, Barry
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear
Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso
Jeremy Allen White, The Bear – WINNER
Female Actor in a Comedy Series
Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary
Ayo Edebiri, The Bear – WINNER
Hannah Waddingham, Ted Lasso
Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
Ahsoka
Barry
Beef
The Last of Us – WINNER
The Mandalorian
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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