After a near awards-season sweep by \u201cOne Battle After Another,\u201d \u201cSinners\u201d won best ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild\u2019s 32nd\u00a0Actor Awards\u00a0on Sunday, shaking up the Oscar race and setting up a potential nail-biter finale in two weeks at the\u00a0Academy Awards.<\/p>\n
The guild\u2019s awards, formerly known as the SAG Awards, are one of the most closely watched Oscar precursors. Actors make up the largest slice of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and their choices at the Actor Awards often align.<\/p>\n
The victory for\u00a0Ryan Coogler\u2019s blues-soaked vampire saga\u00a0showed that it has a strong\u00a0chance to win at the Oscars,\u00a0too, despite an almost unblemished run of awards for Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d It\u2019s won at the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild Awards, the BAFTAs and the Directors Guild Awards.<\/p>\n
But the win Sunday, in a Netflix-streamed ceremony at the Shine Auditorium in Los Angeles, flipped that awards-season script. Writer-director Ryan Coogler, whose \u201cBlack Panther\u201d triumphed at the guild\u2019s awards in 2019, became the first filmmaker to steer two ensembles to the guild\u2019s top prize.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the bottom of our hearts, to the bottom of your hearts, thank you so much for everything,\u201d said Delroy Lindo, who spoke on behalf of the film\u2019s cast.<\/p>\n
Moments earlier, Michael B. Jordan also won best male actor, upsetting the category favorite, Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, and handing the 39-year-old Jordan the most significant prize of his acclaimed career. Even Jordan looked shocked as the audience rose to its feet and Viola Davis, the award\u2019s presenter, celebrated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting this at all,\u201d said Jordan, who reflected on starting out as actor before he paused to appreciate the moment. \u201cYeah, man, this is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
As expected,\u00a0Jessie Buckley\u00a0won best female actor for her performance in \u201cHamnet.\u201d But the other actor races have been harder to call. On Sunday, Sean Penn (who didn\u2019t attend) won best supporting male actor for \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d and Amy Madigan won best supporting female actor for \u201cWeapons.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 75-year-old Madigan, who had never before been nominated by the guild, was visibly surprised. Partway through her winding and charming acceptance speech, she looked down at the statuette.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like when you were little and you had the Barbie and then you got Ken and whipped down his drawers and went, \u2018Hey, that\u2019s nothing,\u2019\u201d joked Madigan before apologizing for getting distracted.<\/p>\n
A posthumous prize for Catherine O\u2019Hara<\/p>\n
Catherine O\u2019Hara posthumously won\u00a0best female actor in a comedy series for her performance as a movie executive in the showbiz satire \u201cThe Studio.\u201d O\u2019Hara died at the age of 71 on Jan. 30\u00a0from a blood clot in the lungs. At the Shine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the crowd stood in a standing ovation for O\u2019Hara after she was announced as the winner.<\/p>\n
Seth Rogen, co-creator of \u201cThe Studio,\u201d accepted the award on her behalf. He recalled a passionate collaborator who would, the night before a scene, invariably send a polite email with suggested rewrites. Rogen said O\u2019Hara \u201cshowed that you could be a genius and you could be kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have people in your lives who don\u2019t know her work,\u201d Rogen said, \u201cshow them O\u2019Hara dancing to Harry Belafonte in \u2018Beetlejuice,\u2019 show them O\u2019Hara hurting her knee in \u2018Best in Show\u2019 and doing that amazing thing where she hobbles around, and tell the people as they are laughing that that\u2019s Catherine O\u2019Hara and we were lucky that we got to live in a world where she so generously shared her talents with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
A ceremony that skirted politics<\/p>\n
The ceremony, presented by the actors guild SAG-AFTRA, were hosted by returning emcee Kristen Bell, who kicked off the show on a light, song-and-dance note despite\u00a0the war in Iran\u00a0and\u00a0entertainment industry upheaval.\u00a0Sean Astin, SAG-AFTRA president,\u00a0offered a \u201ca prayer for peace\u201d in his remarks.<\/p>\n
The Actor Awards were the biggest Hollywood bash since Paramount reached an agreement\u00a0to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for $111 billion. The merger, which awaits regulatory approval, sent shock waves through Hollywood. Netflix chief executive Ted Sarandos, whose company lost out to Paramount competing bid, walked the red carpet in jeans.<\/p>\n
The win for \u201cSinners\u201d insures that Warner Bros. will head into the Academy Awards with the two clear best pictures favorites in it and \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d \u2014 an awards-season coup for a studio set to be sold.<\/p>\n
Before the ceremony began, the award for best stunt ensemble went to a Paramount release: \u201cMission: Impossible \u2014 The Final Reckoning.\u201d Among the TV awards, \u201cThe Studio\u201d won for comedy series and \u201cThe Pitt\u201d won for drama series. Individual winners included Keri Russell (\u201cThe Diplomat\u201d), Rogen (\u201cThe Studio\u201d), Michelle Williams (\u201cDying for Sex\u201d), Owen Cooper (\u201cAdolescence\u201d) and Noah Wyle (\u201cThe Pitt\u201d).<\/p>\n
A Harrison Ford tribute<\/p>\n