We still might not know much about how the Oscars are going to play out, but the SAG Awards—and the overlapping academy members that make up the Screen Actors Guild—are as good a precursor as any for the Oscars’ acting categories. They’re also just a good excuse for throwing a bunch of well-dressed celebrities into a room and seeing what happens. (Never forget Winona Ryder’s bajillion facial expressions last year.) With Kristen Bell overseeing the festivities, here’s whose stocks went up or down heading into March, as well as the people who had very good—or very bad—evenings at the SAG Awards.
Winner: Allison Janney
The Best Supporting Actress race is basically between I, Tonya’s Janney and Lady Bird’s Laurie Metcalf, a battle of intense, larger-than-life big-screen moms. (For what it’s worth, I’ll take Metcalf’s Marion McPherson as my actual mom any day of the week.) After winning at the Golden Globes a couple of weeks ago, Janney took the SAG over Metcalf, which means it’s officially time to start calling her the front-runner.
Winner: Sam Rockwell
Sam Rockwell of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is on a problematic collision course with the Best Supporting Actor Oscar; if he hadn’t won the SAG Award on Sunday night, the door would have at least been open for Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project) to cut into Rockwell’s momentum. But that didn’t happen. While we shouldn’t totally count out Dafoe or Rockwell’s Three Billboards costar Woody Harrelson, at this point if Rockwell doesn’t win at the Oscars, it’ll be a major shock.
Loser: Sam Rockwell
C’mon ... you “love” Ozark?!
Winner: Big Little Lies
Despite the fact Big Little Lies is no longer a limited series—it’s returning for a second season with much of the same cast intact—the show is still cleaning up limited-series categories at major awards shows (see also: the Emmys and Golden Globes). The SAG Awards is the last big event in Season 1’s awards window, so congrats—once again—to Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG Award winners Nicole Kidman and Alexander Skarsgard, and to Big Little Lies in general—we’ll see what happens when you go up against the regular drama series in 2019.
Loser: Curly Hair
Winner: These Three (but Mostly Frances McDormand)
Winner: Rita Moreno
Reminder: Rita Moreno, a legend, is 86 years old.
Winner: Sterling K. Brown
Not only did the This Is Us star pick up another trophy—he also took home an Emmy last September and a Golden Globe earlier this month—but by winning on Sunday, Brown became the first black actor to win Best Actor in a Drama at the SAG Awards. Obviously, it’s a big L for the SAG Awards that it took 24 years for this to happen, but here’s hoping Brown’s win is the start of a more inclusive trend in the category.
Loser: Morgan Freeman’s Hat
Was Morgan Freeman trying to go incognito? Imagine thinking, “You know what’ll make this tux really pop? A nondescript hat.” Anyways, congrats on the Life Achievement Award, Morgan.
Loser: The Potential Youngest Person to Ever Win a Best Actor Oscar
Poor Timmy (that’s what people in the know call Timothée Chalamet, by the way). At 22 years old, Chalamet would be the youngest man to ever take home a Best Actor trophy at the Academy Awards, and heading into awards season, he seemed to have legitimate buzz. But after Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour) beat him at both the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, the odds are getting longer. It’s not fair, honestly—we all deserve to see what Lil’ Timmy Tim would do on that Oscar stage if he won.
Tonight, you will find me sitting in front of a fire, longingly dreaming about that winning moment we likely won’t get to see.
Winner: The Front-Runners
In the five major film categories, all of the presumptive winners (Three Billboards for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Frances McDormand, Gary Oldman, Sam Rockwell, and Allison Janney) came out victorious; in other words, there was no exciting shake-up to the awards-season races. You can book all four actors as the front-runners in their respective categories; Three Billboards is probably the favorite to win Best Picture at this point. The status quo has been set, and awards season so far isn’t throwing us many curveballs.
If that makes you sad, take this to heart: Three Billboards doesn’t have the final category completely locked up. While the SAGs are nice, winning at the SAG Awards isn’t the best Oscar predictor—only six of the past 10 SAG ensemble winners have gone on to win Best Picture. Given that The Shape of Water won the Producers Guild Award on Saturday, the fish sex movie stands as Three Billboards’ biggest competitor heading to the Oscars. We also still shouldn’t count out Get Out or Lady Bird. So don’t worry: There’s still a chance that these Oscars will be hard to predict.
