The 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards
Sunday, January 27, 2019 at 8:36PM 
Megan Mullaly showing one of her dad's residual checks from SAGMegan Mullally served as host for the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards with a droll, endearingly casual approach, often making Lady Gaga the brunt of good natured jokes. But as with most awards show she got out of the way very early. SAG is all awards and no frills. They even shortened the "I am an actor" intro this year, limiting it to just three people. There's no awards show that's faster than SAG but the continually nervous Oscar producers might want to consider, when trying to shorten their own ceremony, that SAG is not even a fraction as popular as the Globes or Oscars, both of which are considerably longer!
The winners and notes...
BEST ACTOR IN A TV COMEDY Tony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
Tony Shalhoub has prepared nothing because, he suggests, his category was too great to think he'd win. This seems naive since he is an awards magnet. He probably has to wear protective gear whenever entering a ceremony, lest he be pummelled with statuettes of all kinds...
To date he's won 4 SAG Awards (from 9 nominations), 3 Emmys (from 9 nominations), 1 Golden Globe (from 5 nominations), 1 Tony (from 4 nominations), and an NSFC. He names fellow nominee Alan Arkin as a reason he wanted to be an actor. Sweet, but Arkin looks as confused / annoyed as he always does at awards shows.
BEST ACTRESS IN A TV COMEDY Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
If you're going to thank a list of names this is how to do it. Brosnahan makes that list of names a story, from her fellow lead actors to the background actors (!), and concludes with the casting directors that took a chance on all of them. Beautifully done, Rachel!
BEST ENSEMBLE TV COMEDY The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
BEST "SUPPORTING" ACTRESS Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place
Looks like Amy Adams just lost the Oscar. Blunt shares our surprise but wings it beautifully making her husband the focus of her speech, since he was both co-star and director, including making a funny about what would have happened if her husband hadn't given her the role.
BEST "SUPPORTING" ACTOR Mahershala Ali, Green Book
He speaks of the "fraternity" of actors 'wrestling with the human condition' and thanks Timothée, Adam, Sam, and Richard by name. We're confused that he's a steamroll winner but these things happen in awards season, even sometimes when there's no obvious narrative (Ali having just won two years ago, and not any more gloriously reviewed than his fellow nominees. But leading roles do have an advantage when nominated against supporting roles).
BEST ACTOR TV MINISERIES/MOVIE Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Why have so many awards shows if you're just going to award the same people at each one of them? We ask this each year and we've yet to receive an answer. Criss makes a case that there should be an Outstanding Cast prize for TV miniseries, which, yes. SAG is weirdly stingy with TV actors. There's not even supporting categories, though in a way this is more honest than having supporting categories and just giving the wins to leading actors instead.
BEST ACTRESS TV MINISERIES/MOVIE Patricia Arquette, Escape to Dannemora
A cute reference to fellow nominee Patty Clarkson, who she thought had won when she heard her first name called. Her speech gets political telling actors to take pictures to prevent cheating on pay such as skipping meal penalties and lack of overtime. Closing the speech by thanking Robert Mueller is fun. Actors sure love Patricia Arquette, don't they?
LIFETIME TRIBUTE Alan Alda
Tom Hanks is really good at presenting such things. "To my friend, our friend, Alan Alda." This clip reel reminds us that, in addition to M*A*S*H, Alan Alda once regularly worked in the movies: Sweet Liberty with Michelle Pfeiffer, The Seduction of Joe Tynan with Meryl Streep, The Aviator with Leo DiCaprio, The Four Seasons with Carol Burnett, etcetera
BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES Jason Bateman, Ozark
Bateman seems quite surprised. Sterling K Brown looks thrilled for him. Beautiful encouraging speech about actors being "just one job away" from the career they want.
BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES Sandra Oh, Killing Eve
Great speech -- it's a night of great speeches -- in which after thanking the cast of Killing Eve tells wonderful tiny little anecdotes about other actors encouraging her: Alfre Woodard, Jamie Foxx, and Lena Waithe.
BEST ENSEMBLE, DRAMA SERIES This is Us
They're very excited about this win.
BEST LEADING ACTOR Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
John David Washington looks very pissed off about something. Did something go wrong at his table? Of Freddie Mercury, Rami Malek claims he gets "some power from him". He says the award is for Freddie Mercury. Which is true.
BEST LEADING ACTRESS Glenn Close, The Wife
Nothing like the emotional shock of the Golden Globes.
BEST CAST, MOTION PICTURE Black Panther
(Chadwick Boseman is crazy thin all of a sudden. Is this for a new role?) The speech is terrific. Like many fine speeches it tells a story. It's about the two questions the cast were asked repeatedly on the press tour. Did they know this would be special? Did they know they'd be around in award season? We'll share the video or the transcript once we have it but it was a beauty, and a fine capper to a show celebrating actors creating stories and realities for audiences.
Reader Comments (95)
Aww I'm loving the Tavira delusion. The space of wishful thinking before the Oscars dashes hopes is a great one.
I am so befuddled by the love for Rami Malek. His performance to me is almost laughable.
Please stop posting this silly "homophobic acceptance speech" about Close!!! Do not turn out her words!!!!
Amy's loss is quite a shock, as SAG became a revenge community against Oscar snubs... No comment, it's sad!!!
I wouldn't count Adams out at all. The situation is very similar to Supporting Actor in 2015. Sylvester Stallone was the assumed front runner the whole season, winning the Globe and Critics Choice, but was snubbed at SAG and BAFTA. Regina King, although she's won more critics awards than Stallone, is in the exact same situation here. And we remember what happened in the end.
I'm sooo happy for Glenn!! She is finally recognised by her peers in a film role n she gives a good speech (not as gr8 as Golden Globes, but I doubt she can ever top tt). š
I disagreed on tt Amy's Oscar chance is gone. Blunt's win juz threw the whole race wide open n in view tt Weisz is winning the Bafta, we hav ourselve a v interesting open 3 horse race btw Amy, Regina n Rachel.
I was thinking yesterday: would Glenn Close be nominated, let alone win, for The Wife if she had won an oscar before? I donāt think so.
@WarrenL yeah, we remember, BAFTA winner has won Oscar.
Will Adams win BAFTA? Possible but I'm counting on Weisz.
She will take BAFTA and Oscar. :)
Glenn Close is winning the Oscar :)
Supporting or not, I love the Blunt win because A Quiet Place is a wonderful movie and she's brilliant in it.
I love Amy Adams, the Arrival omission was a travesty, she's one of the best actors in the world, but she does not deserve recognition for Vice, sorry. Bale doesn't deserve it either.
Glad for Glenn Close, I hope she gets the ultimate trophy next month. Also glad that other races may not be as cut n dried as they have been in recent years (like last yr for example - ugh).
Re Tom O'Neill - my experience watching him has been that he has always been fairly incompetent as an Oscar prognosticator. I remember him insisting that Moulin Rouge would win BP back in the day. I've never relied on him when deciding my Oscar pool picks.
I was almost sentenced to death here for suggesting a few weeks back (AFTER her SAG and BAFTA snubs) that Regina King was on very shaky territory as the frontrunner and that she would likely be usurped. Now Marina de Tavira is being hailed as a potential frontrunner! I think I need to lie down.
Finally got around to watching Bohemian Rhapsody. Messy movie with a fun last 15 min that just focuses on the music. Truely donāt get the love for Rami. Heās downright bad in the first half and only decent in the second. The performance scenes are his best, but he isnāt even doing the singing! Should be nowhere near a nomination, but I guess people love Freddie Mercury so much they are willing to settle for an impersonation thatās only just fine.
Nathaniel - I'm trying to think of the last time we came across a mediocre / bad frontrunner who wasn't considered overdue. Who would be comparable to Rami Malek? Roberto Benigni? LOL.
This is going to go down as one of the worst acting wins ever. Oof.
Malek is like Streep in The Iron Lady gr8 in the older scenes terrible in the younger scenes,and BH is a celebratory movie not a piece of real life drama.
Supp Actress is wide open just like 2000 and Marina does have a chance to be a huge shocker,King's film isn't loved,Adams is all wrong for a win this time,Wiesz and Stone split allowing for a shock win,I am leaning toward that now.
The good thing about this year is that Actor and Supporting Actress are wide open. Any of the 5 women in SA can win the Oscar. And it is too close to call between Malek and Bale. Here's hoping Cooper wins BAFTA to make it even more interesting. Plus he deserves it.
I wonder if A Star is Born got released too early, I am usually all for films getting earlier releases etc but I think that's one film that could have benefited more from recency bias as the hype and excitement around it had died down by November.
Adam - Roberto Benigni is the only comparable option I can recall, but Life Is Beautiful was a fairly respected, though divisive, film (it won the Grand Prix from Scorsese's jury at Cannes!). I can't think of another acting winner who faced this much derision.
Evangelina:
"almost sentenced to death" lol girl calm down girl.
Oscar odds are zero sum. As in: Adams lost ground last night. The ground she lost goes to Kingāand maybe a small fraction of it goes to Tavira, because she's a wildcard who doesn't have a chance to "lose" anything so we can't measure her strength. Point is, the ground doesn't vanish or disappear...it has to go somewhere.
So King went from likely to very likely. Tavira went from zero chance to a slim chance. Adams went from a decent shot to virtually no shot. Stone was never in the race, and Weisz may get a little odds bump from BAFTA if she wins. A BAFTA win would move Adams back to "decent shot" territory and King back down to "likely."
You need good nominees to get good winners.
I might be in the minority, but I thought Chadwick really rambled. And this whole "representation" angle is getting tiring, especially when Crazy Rich Asians was RIGHT THERE to actually represent a group of people that never see themselves on screen.
@Roger: That's a good point, that happened with Zellweger. However, Nicole Kidman also won a Globe. So I guess there's a ray of hope for Colman yet.
Ultimately, I think BAFTA wants to choose either local actors/films or try to predict Oscar as best they can. Adams falls into none of those categories and they can't pick King, so it's probably gotta be Weisz, Foy, or Robbie.
Xavier -- i think it's the way Rami Malek looks and carries himself. He seems much younger than he is. Eventually this will be to his benefit in Hollywood but right now it might make it hard to win the Oscar.
LSS -- maybe not but that's true of virtually every actor with Oscar history. Would Amy Adams sail to every nomination she sails to without her status as someone who has never won: I think not. Oscar is often willing to take a break after they give you the statue. I do think that Glenn Close would have been passed over for Albert Nobbs if she had previously won but not sure about this one. People seem unwilling to realize how great her reviews are for it. This is not a case of "winning only as lifetime achievement". She's terrific in the film.
Everyone -- i'm not sure why people think Marina de Tavira has a shot at a win. She doesn't. foreign language performances only win Oscars rarely and when they do they are almost always because someone either becomes or is a superstar or their film is an enormous hit for its genre. Roma's lack of release prevents the enormous hit part that helped Benigni and Marina isn't a superstar likeCotillard or Loren or Huppert (who probably had a healthy spread of votes in her year, though she lost). I'd believe Marina could win if Yalitza had any shot at all. I just really dont see Oscar passing the chance to reward Regina King up if they're not buying the 'finally award Adams' thing. Every devout fan of IF BEALE STREET is going to vote for her (their best chance to see the movie honored) and presumably a lot of other people too since she's a well liked actor who has become something an awards magnet in recent years.
I actually think Amy's all too easy enormous nomination tally is starting to work against her. Most actresses never get to 6 nominations (only 21 women IN THE HISTORY OF FILM have done it!!!) and if they do it takes them decades to do it. She's done it in just a dozen or so years and usually with very little effort. They're starting to look overly generous with her is what I'm saying... and though I also love her (if not quite a stan like so many readers) I dont think anyone in Hollywood thinks of her as Meryl Streep level of genius so her ease with nominations is really quite miraculous.
A couple of things spring to mind about Marina's chances. The first is that the category does not seem as sewn up as it should be. King will lose SAG & BAFTA due to not being nominated, which puts her frontrunner status in question. The second is that while Roma may not be a huge box office hit, it seems to be a huge hit among Academy voters, given its coattail nominations for Yalitza and Marina. Yalitza will surely fall short because of Glenn Close's strong status at this point, but Marina may just have that outside Marcia Gay Harden shot and there had to have been great love for her performance to overcome the complete lack of precursors attention. Lastly, I think the foreign language stigma may be tempered by the fact that Cuaron is a very well known quantity among Academy voters by now and people love the film. It's not like we've ever had a foreign language film that's been so successful with nominations before either, so this may be new terriiroty.
the confusion about ali and malekāhas the internet not spent years demanding that the academy make itās nominees and winners more diverse (two POC playing gay roles)? the same people who are mad about grant and cooper not getting traction are the people who browbeat he academy about diversity for years. and they have the nerve to act perplexed about it! 5-10 years ago those two would be rightfully coasting toward wins right now but the funhouse weāre living in is āsafeā choices are hated and beloved choices are "unsafe" & everyone is damned if they do damned if they dont. TBQH itās taken all the enjoyment out of awards season. can't wait for it to be over.
I guess because the acting races this year have been more open than usual, people are throwing all caution to the win with their predictions, and it's actually quite hilarious because less and less of what folks are saying to bolster their cases is making sense. I'll just sit back, sip my tea, and wait for next month.
Agreed Bruno. This isn't like the Michael Shannon Nocturnal Animals surprise nomination where he's the only acting representative from an under-the-radar film. Roma is a BP frontrunner, and almost every voter is likely to watch it before voting if they haven't already - giving Marina even more exposure than she had before the nomination.
@ Nathaniel - I agree that Amy Adams has had a heck of a run to six Oscar nominations, but I disagree with the contention that she is getting a free pass on some of them. If that were the case, then she would not have been snubbed for "Arrival" (still an intolerable oversight by the Acting branch of A.M.P.A.S.). I do agree with the apparent consensus that this nomination is not her strongest, and that the race at this point is Regina King's to lose. This does not change my humble opinion that Amy Adams is one of the most brilliant actresses working today and that it is simply a matter of time before she gets the combination of role and campaign to put her over the top for an Oscar statuette.
One can say plenty about the Marvel franchises, but shoddy ensemble work is hardly one of them. They've had fantastic roles and fantastic runs across the board for the great majority of the MCU's existence...
I don't see what Black Panther offered, aside from the obvious political climate shifts, that merited an outright win.
I understand most don't feel this way, which is cool. Just putting it out there.
Malek is atrocious, though. And yet, I also feel terrible for him, because his win will be as reviled as Benigni's was for Life is Beautiful. Here's hoping the Academy saves him the trouble.
Or not.
Loving the supporting actress race! Finally, it's 2007 (almost) all over again!
When it comes to supporting actress, the winners in 2008 was as"varied" as this year:
Cate Blanchett won Golden Globes
Ruby Dee won SAG
Tilda Swinton won BAFTA
Amy Ryan Critics Choice Awards
Tilda Swinton won OSCAR
I am really not getting the love for Rami Malek's performance. He lipysynched and it's a white wash rendering of Freddie Mercury's life.
Manuel -- yeah i LOVED the 2007 supporting actress race for its unpredictability. But the difference then is they were all actually supporting performances AND it was very strong lineup. Four of the five of them (barring only Ruby Dee's well played but very minor part) could have made a case for herself as a winner in many a year. Sadly, we don't have that this year since we have two excellent leading roles, one mediocre nominee (amy adams), one great one (regina king) and a shocker (de tavira)
Goodness Nate have you become a broken record with the Ali in supporting nontroversey. We get it. He should be in lead! We get it. The Oscars have a category fraud problem. It made sense to keep bring it up pre-critics/guilds/Oscar-nominations. It doesn't anymore. It's a closed case. The industry has accepted him in supporting.
@Manuel - Thank you for reminding me of one of my favorite Oscar win of all time. Tilda 4eva! (PS: Marina's just fine in ROMA but she's no Tilda.)
re: Tilda I love Tilda in everything, but I don't think Michael Clayton would be my choice to award her. Still thrilled that she won, even though it somehow meant she'd not get nominated again (for a long time or ever?). Ruby Dee was so strong in that one scene, I wouldn't have been upset if she'd won either.
re: Rami I HATE these biopic performances where the subject is a complete caricature (Cate as Kate in The Aviator comes to mind). The performance improved a bit towards the end, but blech.
Say it Marina de Tavira Marisa Tomei.
Tomei was also seen as a 5th place also-ran.
Stone is the Streep in the category meaning she's not winning due to her status. In this specific case being a previous winner of Best Actress and too young without enough nods to justify ending her Academy run with a 2nd win in supporting for all things The Favourite.
I think the Academy can't overlook Close, but will want to give Roma an acting win. So yeah, Marina de Tivira (who is great, by the way).
Tilda's win is one of my favorites ever. Sure she's been more remarkable in other roles but she was absolutely fantastic here and extremely deserving.
@/3rtful cannot say it and will not have to, I am pretty sure.
"I'm trying to think of the last time we came across a mediocre / bad frontrunner who wasn't considered overdue. Who would be comparable to Rami Malek? Roberto Benigni? LOL.
This is going to go down as one of the worst acting wins ever. Oof."
Lawrence, Jennifer -- Silver Linings Playbook. And then again the year after when she was in serious contention for a second Oscar for American Hustle.
I am still baffled by why Bradley Cooper is not winning any acting awards. Do people think that performance was easy for him? I get that they would not want to award him right away for directing, but giving him an Oscar for acting would be a recognition for him that is well deserved at this point, IMHO. Rami is cute in an odd way, wearing false teeth and mouthing the words to the songs, but BH is on the level of Mamma Mia! Entertaining for fans but very messy.
@Faye: I think they just have trouble awarding men who give sensitive portrayals. Couple that with they just DIE for these biopic roles, especially in Best Actor.
Rami Malek AMAZING :)
āPeople seem unwilling to realize how great [Glenn Closeās] reviews are for it. This is not a case of "winning only as lifetime achievement". She's terrific in the film.ā
This. She only hopped into the Oscar conversation because she earned rave reviews for this performance, yet some are acting like those reviews never existed. One or two pundits who were against her all season are still embittered. Iāll never understand why the prospects of a veteran actress winning for a well-reviewed performance is such a repulsive scenario for some people.
Why don't the Oscar producers do what the Australian and British film awards do with their telecasts? They split their telecasts into 2 nights. The craft awards are held a day or week before the other awards are presented. Presentation 1 could include the Governors awards. the sci-fi / tech awards and the craft awards like Shorts, Sound editing, mixing, editing, visual effects, production design, costume design and make up effects. The main presentation will include the major awards Picture, Director, Acting, Screenplay, Cinematography, Foreign Language, Animated feature, Documentary Feature and at least a half hour recap of the previous nights winners. This should make the main presentation less than 3 hours long. Something EVERYONE would be pleased about.
@Gustavo Horn Glenn's performance in The Wife, and perhaps more importantly the film itself, were just not exciting to some people. They chose showier work to swoon over and root for from Colman or Gaga or even Collette, and couldn't understand how Glenn could compete with them. They just do not appreciate the nuanced physicality of her best work. The fact that supposed prognosticators and interpreters of the Oscar race like Gold Derby and Indiewire and Awards Daily took part in such an unfair erasure is pitiful, and I'm glad they've been so far shown up for it.