SAG Awards Surprise, Promise Oscar Showdown
LOS ANGELES, CA —Actress Glenn Close may finally win an Oscar. If her Screen Actors Guild award for her work in “The Wife” is any indication, the often-nominated actress is now the the frontrunner for the best-actress Academy Award.
The SAG Awards Sunday night, often considered predictors for the Oscars, set the stage for an showdown between actors Rami Malek and Christian Bale. It also left “Black Panther” in solid position as a best picture nominee and Emily Blunt as best supporting actress for her work in the suspense thriller “A Quiet Place.”
Malek won the SAG Award for best actor Sunday for his “Bohemian Rhapsody” performance as Freddie Mercury while Bale has the Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe win for best actor for his portrayal of Vice President Dick Cheney in “Vice.”
In Accepting his award Sunday night, Malek gave thanks to the late Freddie Mercury.
“I get some power from him that is about stepping up and living your best life … accomplishing everything you so desire,” Malek said. “This is again for him.”
Close, meanwhile, won the SAG Award for best actress, adding to her Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice prizes.
Her win for “The Wife,” in which she plays the long-suffering spouse of a Nobel Prize winner, was the second SAG Award of her career, with the first coming in 2005 for her lead role in the TV movie “The Lion in Winter.”
“One of the most powerful things that we have as human beings are two eyes looking into two eyes, and film is the only art form that allows us the close up,” she said. “I think we have to remember how powerful that is in a world that is consumed with different-sized screens. … The power that we have are two human eyes looking into two other eyes. That will give us empathy and understanding.”
Chadwick Boseman, the star of “Black Panther” accepted the outstanding ensemble cast award Sunday. And he spoke about the importance of a victory for a nearly all-black cast.
“When I think of going to work every day and the passion and the intelligence, the resolve, the discipline that everybody showed,” he said. “I also think of two questions we all have received during the course of multiple publicity runs. And one was did we know this movie was going to receive this kind of response … and the second question is has it changed the industry, has it actually changed the way this industry works, how it sees us. And my answer to that is to be young, gifted and black.
“Because all of us up here know … to be young, gifted and black we all know what it’s like to be told there is a not a place for you to be featured,” Boseman said. ” … We know what it’s like to be the tail but not the head, to be beneath but not above. And that is what we went to work with every day. … We knew that we had something special that we wanted to give the world. That we could be full human beings in the role we were playing, that we could create a world that exemplified a world we wanted to see.”
The complete list of winners includes:
MOTION PICTURES
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role:
Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role:
Glenn Close, “The Wife”
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role:
Mahershala Ali, “Green Book”
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role:
Emily Blunt, “A Quiet Place”
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture:
“Black Panther”
TELEVISION
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries:
Darren Criss, “Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story”
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries:
Patricia Arquette, “Escape at Dannemora”
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series:
Jason Bateman, “Ozark”
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series:
Sandra Oh, “Killing Eve”
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series:
Tony Shaloub, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series:
Rachel Brosnahan, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series:
“This Is Us”
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series:
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”
Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Comedy or Drama Series:
“Glow”
Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture:
“Black Panther”
City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report. Photo: Glenn Close accepts the award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a leading role for “The Wife” at the 25th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall on Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
