The best and worst moments from the 30th SAG Awards

Of all the awards shows on the calendar, the SAG Awards has a special place, because it’s all about actors honoring each other. There’s a feeling of community you don’t usually see on other shows. The winners are encouraged to talk about their first acting jobs and what it meant to them to join SAG. The atmosphere is celebratory, with a bit less pressure than the Oscars. That doesn’t mean it can’t tell us anything about what the Academy Awards have in store in just a few weeks. We saw many of the same winners we’ve been seeing all season, thanking many of the same people. It really is a testament to their acting skills that they make their speeches seem genuine and impromptu every time.

In a first for the platform, this year’s show was live-streamed on Netflix. There are still some kinks to work out, clearly. Without commercial breaks (not that we miss the ads) the producers had to fill the time somehow, and their solutions didn’t all work out. It’s also probably not a good idea to tell a room full of attention-seekers they’re not supposed to swear. That’s just asking for a constant blitz of F-bombs. So let’s take a look at all the fucking highs and lows of this year’s ceremony.

Best: “I Am An Actor” intro

It’s become a tradition for the SAG Awards to open the show the same way, with famous actors delivering a few lines about their careers. The bits are usually pretty funny, and this year was no exception. Barbie’s Michael Cera kicked things off by talking about getting his union card at the age of 13 and being treated like an adult. He handed it off to Coleman Domingo, who listed some of his notable roles, then threw it to Hannah Waddingham, who stole the opening of the show with a story of finding a mouse in her dress while performing in Spamalot in the West End. Until Idris Elba upstaged her with his impressive Robert De Niro impression.