It was a big night for movies as the Screen Actors Guild held their 28th annual awards ceremony, which recognized the best talent in both movies and television in the year 2021, and is usually a strong indicator of the Oscars ceremony that will take place on Sunday, March 27th.
The ceremony opened with Hamilton actors Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., and Daveed Diggs giving pretty funny banter while kicking off the festivities, with Odom mentioning the ongoing events in Ukraine. As the night continued, more and more celebrities who attended the ceremony, like Brian Cox and Michael Keaton, mentioned the conflict, making clear that they stood with Ukraine in this time of continuing uncertainty in the country. Just like Saturday Night Live the night before, the SAG Awards did a very good job acknowledging the ongoing Russian invasion and expressing their support for Ukraine.
As far as awards went, we saw some pretty big representation for both the deaf and Chinese communities, as both CODA (a movie with a deaf family at its center) and Squid Game (an extremely popular Korean Netflix series) won big. For CODA, deaf actor Troy Kotsur, who has also been nominated for an Oscar, took home an award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, and, most importantly, the entire cast, including Kotsur, deaf actress Marlee Matlin, and Emilia James, took home the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, showing a huge step forward for the deaf community as a whole. We’ll see if this is a precursor to how the movie performs with the Academy Awards, but, so far, so good.
And, in the case of Squid Game, the series that has gained a significant following since premiering back in the fall, Lee Jung-jae and Jung Ho-yeon took home acting honors for male and female respectively, and the entire cast also won for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Comedy or Drama Series. A big check mark for representation, if I do say so myself.
Other highlights of the show included new Screen Actors Guild president Fran Drescher’s commitment to help fight climate change in the movie industry by reducing single-use plastics, Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino, the stars of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, reuniting after 25 years (I’ve never seen that movie, it was just fun to see those two together), Martin Short and Selena Gomez making for pretty funny presenters, and Helen Mirren winning a Lifetime Achievement Award. All in all, a pretty entertaining SAG Awards ceremony, and, as far as commitments towards the future of the movie industry go, a very important one, as well.