SAG Awards: What you need to know about the rules
The Screen Actors Guild Awards are the annual awards ceremony where actors celebrate actors. The SAG Awards show started in 1995 and the ceremony is a way for the massive membership of the SAG-AFTRA union (more than 130,000 members strong) to honor the best performances of the year – including an ensemble prize for the best casts in film, television drama, and television comedy. As SAG likes to proclaim, the SAG Awards are the only ceremony exclusively devoted to actors – never mind that the Oscars, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and several other shows also make actors the centerpiece of every ceremony.
Ahead, every to know about how SAG Awards voting works.
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When are the SAG Awards?
This year’s ceremony takes place on Sunday, February 23, 2025 – notably after the final Oscar winner voting ends. That means the SAG Awards might not necessarily impact the Oscars race – at least in terms of the potential momentum gained for a particular winner.
Are the SAG Awards a reliable Oscars precursor?
Not always. For instance, this year, Lily Gladstone won Best Actress from SAG for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” besting presumed Oscars favorite Emma Stone. But despite that victory and Gladstone’s rousing speech (which happened during Oscar voting), Stone still emerged victoriously at the Oscars ceremony. In 2021, SAG gave its lead acting honors to Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” but neither star won at the Oscars. Instead, Anthony Hopkins and Frances McDormand were chosen as the Academy’s winners. But then there are years like 2022 and 2023 when SAG and Oscar matched four-for-four in the top film acting prizes.
In terms of the Best Ensemble award, it has recently paid to win: Four of the last five Best Picture winners have also won Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards, and one could argue against the idea that both “Parasite” and “CODA” used the momentum from those SAG wins to earn eventual unexpected Best Picture victories.
So, how does SAG voting really work?
Glad you asked. At the nominations stage, it’s relatively simple. The Screen Actors Guild randomly selects nominating committees of members in good standing with the union to consider the year’s performance and ensembles in film and television. There are roughly 2,500 SAG members in each committee. This select group – again, one chosen at random – nominates individuals and ensembles for that season’s awards.
Okay, then who votes for the winners?
In the final stage of voting, things get much easier to understand: The winners will continue to be decided by the entirety of the SAG-AFTRA union. Historically, because of the sheer size of the union, SAG winners tend to be more populist than Oscar winners.
So how does this impact campaigning?
While there are less than 10,000 members of the Academy compared to 130,000 members of the SAG-AFTRA union, actors are considered the most important voting bloc in the Academy because actors represent the biggest branch of the Academy. So, as evidenced by the Best Ensemble track record over the last five years, it likely pays to win Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards, particularly if the movie is not considered the favorite.
What are the important dates to know for SAG?
It’s a good thing you asked about all this now. Nominations voting starts on December 16 – so if you’re watching this and are a member of the nominating committee, get ready. The voting for nominations closes on January 5, 2025.
Nominations for the 2025 SAG Awards are announced on January 8, 2025.
Final SAG Awards winner voting opens on January 15, 2025, and then closes on February 21, 2025. All members, as mentioned, vote in this round.
The 2025 SAG Awards take place on Sunday, February 23, 2025, and stream live on Netflix.
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