After months of direct confrontation in a bitter Hollywood strike, the Screen Actors Guild and Netflix are offering each other a two-hour olive branch: The 30th SAG Awards are streaming on the platform tonight for the first time ever.
Many hopes hang from either side of that branch. SAG is betting that Netflix can give its awards show, traditionally viewed as a predictive precursor to the Oscars, a much wider audience than it reached in previous years. Netflix is determined to prove that it can broadcast a live event as successfully as any television network.
Of course, it’s the biggest stars that will be the draw on Saturday, including a rare public appearance by Barbra Streisand, who will receive SAG’s Life Achievement Award. She’s showing up because, as she recently told The Times’ Glenn Whipp, she liked the fact that “so many actors marched and worked very hard to get what they campaigned for,” and also because “they told me in advance that I got the award! No trauma or drama.”
Follow along throughout the night as Mary McNamara, Meredith Blake and Josh Rottenberg report on the proceedings live. Here’s hoping that the “no drama” rule doesn’t extend to the show.
Winners list | All the looks from the red carpet
4:51 p.m. Hannah Waddingham wins best-dressed, in my esteemed opinion, for carrying a homemade cardboard clutch made by her daughter. It’s honestly the chicest thing I’ve seen all night. —MB
And Idris Elba is in the building. All is well. —MM
Elba is set to open and close the show, according to the producers, but they’re not going so far as calling him the “host.” —JR
4:48 p.m. Kieran Culkin went Full Hugh Grant”on Welteroth, giving her grief for leaning on him and taking off her painful shoes on the red carpet. I am always here for a red carpet grump. —MB
Meanwhile, Billie Eilish just confessed to teleprompter-phobia. Well, we all have to be afraid of something. —MM
4:44 p.m. Wait, are they giving awards on the carpet? Apparently so. For stunt ensemble in a TV series, it’s “The Last of Us”; for film, “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I.” It feels a bit cavalier and anticlimactic considering, you know, all those freaking stunts involved. I mean they could have had Tom Cruise jump all the main tables on a motorcycle or something. —MM
4:39 p.m. If anyone watching at home is curious what attendees will be eating, the “light dinner” will be chive-crusted salmon. It’s served cold, which is good because it’s been sitting out on the tables for a while now and very few people have taken their seats yet. —JR
Josh, that item about the cold salmon should have come with a trigger warning. Maybe it’s a good thing everyone in Hollywood is on Ozempic these days. —MB
And they are mid-awards season. My favorite memory from the post-Oscar’s Governors Ball is seeing all the stars make a beeline for the bread baskets. Finally, they can eat! Honestly, you could lose a finger trying to claim a pretzel roll. —MM
4:34 p.m. Sorry, did Tan say he wanted Jessica Chastain’s babies? This night is really taking an unexpected turn. —MB
I don’t know, France and Debicki and Welteroth and Chastain were all talking at each other from separate parts of the carpet via screens. Which was kind of weird. Then Chastain chatted with Bradley Cooper, who she apparently knows from PTA? Meanwhile, Jon Hamm was standing in the background looking like he can’t understand why no one is interviewing him. Also, I always forget that Alan Ruck is married to Mireille Enos, who looks amazing. —MM
4:29 p.m. For reasons of his own, Tan France just gave Glen Powell a wrist corsage, which Powell misidentified as a boutonniere. Having not seen a wrist corsage since my junior prom, never mind at a Hollywood awards show, I am barely able to obsess about Cillian Murphy’s accent. —MM
I can’t help but notice the prevalence of Netflix stars on the red carpet so far, including Wong (“Beef”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”) and Elizabeth Debicki (“The Crown”). I’m glad they let Murphy speak for a minute or two because I could listen to that accent all day. —MB
4:22 p.m. The pre-show is underway, and we’re looking at the grey carpet with Tan France — in an insane… bow tie? Boba straw? Inflatable chopstick? — and Elaine Welteroth, who gave us a look at hot fashion of SAG Awards past before kicking things off with Ali Wong wearing a black and white number decorated by what looked like a bunch of artisanal paper snowflakes. Also, my first tiny telecast glitch. —MM
Ali Wong was the first — but let’s hope not the last — person to mention “vaginal birth” tonight on the carpet. So cheers to that. —MB
4:15 p.m. Super excited to be watching the Screen Actors Guild Awards as Netflix continues its attempt to prove it can do everything broadcast/cable can except breaking news. (When Netflix announces it is entering the journalism space, you heard it here first.) I was tiny bit concerned as I struggled to find the pre-show coverage listed anywhere, though: I had to search to find the listing for the actual show, which says it starts at 5 p.m. Pacific. Instead I was being urged to re-watch “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” which swept the awards last year. And frankly, it is tempting. —MM
Same thing over here, Mary, except the algorithm suggested I continue watching “The Crown” and “Love Is Blind,” because it knows I love shows about emotionally stunted people in doomed relationships. Netflix is known for eschewing traditional marketing in favor of using “the algorithm” to suggest certain shows based on “taste clusters” — which are not, in fact, a brand of granola. But the thing about live TV is you kind of need to know when it’s on in order to, ya know, watch it. And if the algorithm can’t figure out that I — a person who writes about entertainment for a living and grew up watching every awards show known to man — might be interested in watching celebrities win trophies and make tearful speeches, then it needs to do better. —MB
Yes, it was kind of weird to be sitting here staring at a screen that said only “It’s almost time; the live event will start soon” instead of, I don’t know, the final minutes of a re-run of “The Closer.” —MM
I am primarily concerned that the whole “No ads” thing will mean no snack breaks, which are truly essential to home viewing of awards shows. Mary, how do you plan to make it through two whole hours without going to the kitchen to refill the popcorn? —MB
Criminy. I hadn’t thought about that. And with the SAG Awards there are no “boring” categories. (Sorry sound editing/sound mixing!) —MM
