The Bests, Worsts, Mosts, and Leasts of the 2025 SAG Awards
Are the Oscars about to be exciting?!?
The Screen Actors Guild Awards once again lived up to its reputation as The Show We Always Think We Like The Best, Until We Get to the Tonys. It had to sting when the SAGs ended up homeless for a year, but landing on Netflix has been great for it: Yes, okay, we got repetitive single commercials for Dior perfume or Capital One, but mostly, the actors got their bathroom breaks yet again via well-crafted montages that remind you this shit is supposed to be FUN -- and you never get a plethora of big packages like that on a network TV schedule (on so many levels, ARE WE RIGHT, NUDGE-NUDGE).
Even though the show technically ran over its usual two-hour runtime, it felt well-paced and sprightly and cheerful, and also... it needs to be said... HIGH AS FUCK. Harrison Ford seemed toasted the second he hit the red carpet and that did not wane at any point. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson presented an award together, and while the whole bit was a joke about chemistry or the lack thereof, their bumbling came off like they’d hit a little of nature’s finest off-stage. SAG president The Nanny Named Fran seemed like she was having a little trouble holding it together through basic speech. Now, more than one presenter pairing seemed thrown off by the Teleprompters and there were audio issues all night, so it’s possible this was a side effect of that. But if you told us the union had given out spliffs in the gift bags, we’d believe it. The effect was amusing, but also, no wonder your show runs over when people take three times longer than usual to form words. Bless them all. L.A. has been through it; toke if you’ve got it.
Worst Mistake: Having said that! This was the first year that the SAGs gave out awards for the best stunt teams, in both TV and film. And the organization chose to give those awards during the red carpet pre-show, on said red carpet and without any representative present to accept, which is shitty! This show doesn’t have a hard-and-fast out in terms of timing and could easily accommodate two more awards. Dumping this honor into the pre-show diminishes the stunt teams’ importance, which is (a) clearly unfair because you made an award for them, and (b) needlessly bitchy. We’d wager that a large percentage of actors would also like to applaud the stunt people who slam into walls or jump off buildings or get stabbed for them. And the crews that win deserve to give a speech like everyone else. Do better next year, SAGs.
Most Urgent Hire For Next Year: Get Kristen Bell again, because she did a really nice job hosting. She moved the show along, she is nimble with a joke, she has amiable energy, and she’s willing to make fun of herself. We enjoyed her and Adam Brody winking at their viral kiss in Nobody Wants This by pointing out how many OTHER actors have grabbed her face during a makeout, and we loved the Gossip Girl callout that paired Kristen -- the show’s omniscient narrator -- with the erstwhile Blair Waldorf. Her best bit was the opening number, in which Bell sang “Do You Want to Be an Actor?” to the tune of one of her Frozen songs, over a collection of shots of stars in their first roles -- including both Jodie Foster’s famous Coppertone sunscreen ad, which she’d just mentioned in the pre-show “I’m an actor” anecdotes, and Zoe Saldaña grooving with Britney Spears in Crossroads.
Biggest Relief: FINALLY, somebody acknowledged Crossroads. Can Center Stage be far behind?
Best Idea We Just Had, Like Sixteen Years Too Late: E! has its infamous Glam Bot -- the 360 degree camera that gets stylised snaps of celebs in their red carpet finery. (Let’s not speak of its much maligned Mani Cam, which we think people might enjoy more now than they did at the time.) Because that’s surely trademarked, Netflix introduced its “Style Cam,” used for much the same purpose, if less often than perhaps it could have been. We were struck with a brainwave whilst watching this: Why isn’t this called the GLAM CAM? HELLO?!! IT’S RIGHT THERE. There HAS to be some reason for this. It’s so obvious. Does, like, some obscure and litigious arm of L’Oreal have a “Glam Cam” languishing in the back room somewhere and are they willing to sue over it? Did E! Trademark “Glam” and/or “Cam” just in case? Please someone figure this out.
Most Unexpected Compliment to the Pre-Show: It was okay! It was pretty good! It was like a 6.75 out of 10. E!’s Zuri Hall should not feel concerned that anyone is coming for her gig. But there was one aspect of the show where Netflix has E! beat: The lighting was unusually good. Everyone looked extremely glowy. Full props to the lighting crew, which we have never said about E!
Most Expected Complaint About the Pre-Show: Listen, these things are harder to host than it may seem. Sasheer Zamata and Lilly Singh both did pretty well; Sasheer was maybe 16% too relaxed, while Lilly was maybe 11% too manic, and they would have been well-served to meet in the middle. But both women did their best through a variety of interviews that weren’t easy, for a lot of weird reasons. Jane Fonda acted like she was speaking to Lilly under duress, and Sasheer got Harrison Ford, as noted above, seemingly under the influence. But no one in the production crew seemed to have thought about how to cut between the two interview stations, which led to a lot of awkward interviews that petered out like a conversation between two perfectly nice people at a cocktail party who are both tired of talking to each other but can’t figure out how to extract themselves. You can’t say, “Oh, there’s my cousin! I better go say hello,” or “I’m going to go refresh my drink,” at the end of an interview. Additionally, they didn’t seem to have considered how to hand off the guest’s mic when everyone was done, which led to a lot of actors waggling it uncomfortably at the end. This is not the end of the world or anything, but we assume both of these issues will be covered at length in the post-show debrief... after everyone praises the lighting people.
Most Intriguing Pre-Show Choice: The show aired on Netflix, but its cold open was an extended segment involving the cast and characters on Hacks -- which is not a Netflix show. Massive props to Netflix for not being selfish and hogging that slot for its own content, although I sincerely and gratefully would have watched Hal and Kate Wyler of The Diplomat squabble with their staff, Rory Kinnear’s PM, and Allison Janney’s VP about how they would host this thing and who’d do the talking. So maybe be a bit more selfish next time, Netflix. Exactly that selfish.
Weirdest Pre-Show Interview: As mentioned above, Jane Fonda was sort of pissy and recalcitrant (although she might have been nervous about her speech later), and Harrison Ford was likely very stoned. Kieran Culkin did his usual snarky, almost combative thing that people generally respond well to (but which reminds us of being on a date with someone who really, really wants to “banter”), but at least he always plays along. Lilly said the words, “I am in the honor of perfection” to Pamela Anderson and we have no idea what she meant by that but sympathize that sometimes you start a sentence and it goes totally off the rails in the middle of your attempt to complete it. Quinta Brunson made us laugh when she said she enjoys the SAGs because she “loves seeing other short people.” But by far, the weirdest interaction was with Jamie Lee Curtis -- who is famously sober but perhaps was just high on life, and who was also styled very Moira Rose (in a good way). Our notes say, “She is at least committing to this interview.” She dropped the news that Freakier Friday comes out on August 8, told Lilly Singh that she was going to bite her (!!!) (this seemed like a compliment!) (Lilly seemed surprised!), and then flashed double peace signs and said, “God bless you all,” directly to the camera before telling Lilly she wanted Lilly to stop talking to her immediately and grab Anna Sawai instead. We will have what she’s having.
Most Relatable Interview: Christa Miller and Brett Goldstein, colleagues on Shrinking, paired up on the red carpet and went on a tangent recommending that everyone watch The Pitt on HBO. They are correct! It’s extremely well done. Maybe next year Noah Wyle will be there with a nomination of his own and he can keep the chain going with a rec of his own.
Best Montage: To be clear, every montage ruled-- the one dedicated to Los Angeles (including wise words from Beverly Hills 90210’s Dylan McKay; whoever directed this show has to be Gen X); the one devoted to horror films; the delightful assortment of pre-famous people appearing on Law & Order; and, of course, the In Memoriam, which was particularly wrenching this year and which the SAGs always does better than any other awards show. But then, the SAGs honored soap operas, an oft-maligned genre whose legitimacy we will trumpet until the end of our days (and of our DAYS): They strung together footage of famous actors who got their starts in daytime, like Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Michael B. Jordan, Meg Ryan, Demi Moore... and on and on and on, concluding with Sarah Michelle Gellar’s iconic turn as Kendall Hart, sassing the hell out of Susan Lucci by hissing, “Your BROOMSTICK must be TURBO-CHARGED.” It was BEYOND delightful.
Saddest Missed Opportunity: Do you think they even TRIED to get Erica Kane and Buffy to walk out together after that and present an award? If they didn’t, we hope they are not sleeping soundly tonight.
The Other Thing The Oscars Should Learn From: THANK YOU to the SAGs for remembering that everyone who loves awards shows BADLY wants to see the clips of each nominated performance before an award is presented. We don’t need to see Jessica Chastain, say, weeping at Emma Stone that Emma has changed her life -- even if we like both of them and that might be true! We want to see Emma Stone with terrible hair crying in an insane asylum in a clip from the period piece for which she was nominated. It doesn’t matter if we’ve seen the movie or not -- in fact, sometimes it’s more fun if you haven’t! The clips are an important part of awards show lore and it’s criminal that the Youths Today might not even know when it means when us Olds say things like, “There’s her awards show clip.” BRAVO TO THE SAGS FOR RECOGNIZING THE POWER OF THE CLIP!
Best Table: We’re giving it to Shrinking. Harrison Ford was having the time of his LIFE there, including mugging -- amusingly -- during Jessica Williams’s “I’m an Actor” speech. That whole crew seems to like each other so much, and frankly, we just want to watch Harrison giggle some more.
Best Improv: Jamie Lee Curtis presented the award for Best Actor in a Miniseries, and when she opened the envelope, she quipped, “The actor goes to the man who gave me COVID at the Golden Globes.” It was Colin Farrell, who immediately confessed his guilt. Hey, at least he didn’t give Martin Short Covid at SNL50. THAT was someone else. Probably everyone else.
Best Surprises: The actors must be WAY over The Bear’s category fraud, because they blanked it. Timothée Chalamet upset Adrien Brody in the Best Actor race, making the Oscars a tiny bit more interesting next week. But honestly, we were the most happy about Martin Short FINALLY winning for his work on Only Murders In The Building (which, to Selena Gomez’s emotional astonishment, ALSO took home the ensemble award). And you know why Marty’s victory felt especially earned? Because they used CLIPS, and the one they showed for him was a perfect encapsulation of his comedic brilliance, so ONCE AGAIN, FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK: RUN CLIPS.
Best Potential Repudiation of A.I.: Voting for the SAGs closed just this past Friday, and were the first to end after the makers of The Brutalist revealed using artificial intelligence to tweak Adrien Brody’s accent. They are not alone in using A.I., but it raises interesting questions about how much of a person’s performance should be disqualified for anything that could materially change their work — in this case, redoing some of Brody’s vocal work rather than coaching HIM to do it himself. Supposedly the Academy and other governing bodies are considering A.I. disclosure rules; while we may never know if it affected SAG or Oscar voting, it’s not a subject that’s going away, even though we would very much like these aspects of A.I. to take a seat.
Best Change-Up: Timothée Chalamet seems like a personable guy in interviews, and when he’s on Saturday Night Live you can tell they enjoy writing for him — but his red-carpet photos do have a whiff of the Too Cool For School about them, and if that’s all you ever see, then that might be the impression you’d get. (This is not necessarily his fault. Ours would be replete with Resting Bitchface. Photos are hard.) So it was quite nice when he won and made it clear in his speech how much he cares about this, how driven he is, how much he hopes to be among the greats, and how inspired he is by folks like Daniel Day Lewis and Viola Davis. One of the commenters in the live chat described this speech as having a surprising amount of ambition, and that’s correct. Listen, deep down, every actor imagines winning an award, right? And why shouldn’t they? It’s their job; how could they not want to be told by their peers that they’re great at it? On some level, they all want it, even the blasé ones. It’s refreshing when they aren’t afraid to say so.
Best Activism: Fran Drescher tried, which is more than we expected, but it’s impossible to follow Jane Fonda on this front. The Lifetime Achievement recipient delivered a blistering banger of a speech that included the line, “We are in our documentary moment. This is it. And it’s not a rehearsal,” and, “Woke just means you give a damn about other people.” AMEN, JANE. She also had to roll through a technical snafu that had an announcer interrupting her by mistake, at which point she cracked, “And I can conjure up voices.” It’s true. She CAN do it all, and long may she.
ICYMI…
We’ve got recaps, friends! (That middle one is catching up with Traitors, which has been a hoot.)
Paid subscribers will get the next round of Severance and White Lotus recaps before you know it. We’ve got a lot to discuss!
Last Call:
— This photo represents my first and most consistent thought about Thursday’s The Traitors:
— Sunday is the Oscars! Yes, already! If you want to be part of our live chat during the red carpet and ceremony, upgrade your subscription now!
— Speaking of the Oscars, Vulture’s got a long and juicy piece talking to "Oscars strategists,” who are, in their words, “a select breed of film publicists who shepherd Oscar hopefuls through the six grueling months leading up to the Academy Awards.” It’s SO logistics-y and interesting. They mostly seem to think Anora is going to win Best Picture. I do not! - J
— And, finally, we’ve got complete coverage of SAGs red carpet looks at Go Fug Yourself today, so come on by and see what everyone wore.
I'm just going to pretend the new Stunt Award is a nod to Saz from OMITB!
I'm in patent (not trademark) law, but from what I can tell from the USPTO Trademark search, there's a dead/cancelled trademark to Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. for GLAM CAM and a live/registered trademark for VIDEO GLAM CAM KIT to Iconic Living, LLC 😊