The 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards has officially come to a close, which means the whispers and rumblings continue to heat up as we draw closer and closer to the Oscars.
The award show saw Timothée Chalamet deliver a heartfelt speech about leaving a long-lasting legacy of greatness as he accepted the SAG for his portrayal as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, with Oscars buzz immediately surrounding him and others in the upcoming Best Actor category. Demi Moore also won in her respective category for The Substance, while Kieran Culkin nabbed a supporting role SAG statue and Colin Farrell stole our hearts over within the television landscape. Oh, and let’s not forget Shōgun unsurprisingly dominating, with Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai both taking home gold.
And now that the ceremony has ended, it is the perfect time to learn more about what we just watched. To start, who exactly gets to vote for these immensely talented people?
How are SAG Awards decided?
As alluded to by Oppenheimer‘s Cillian Murphy in his 2024 acceptance speech for the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role award, anyone who has full union membership in SAG-AFTRA may cast their votes for the SAG Awards. In other words, the SAG Awards is a ceremony where actors honor actors.
To break it down even further, the nominees are decided by a randomly selected committee numbering 4,200 union members (2,100 for television and 2,100 for film) each year. These nominees can then, of course, be voted for by the SAG-AFTRA union members, and whoever gets the most votes in their category wins the award.
Okay, so maybe that last bit was a given, but there’s nothing wrong with having all your bases covered. And we do, in fact, got ’em covered.
Published: Feb 24, 2025 12:43 pm