The 22nd annual SAG Awards will get underway at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Saturday night. How much should Oscar-watchers pay attention to the results? Here's my take.
SAG-AFTRA is the largest union of actors, representing some 160,000 who work across the media. SAG Awards nominees are determined by nominating committees comprised of small percentages of the whole membership. A heavily-courted group of 2,250 actors chose the film nominees and 2,250 actors chose the TV nominees during a voting period that spanned Nov. 18 through Dec. 7, while winners were chosen by the entire membership during a voting period that spanned Dec. 16 through just yesterday, Jan. 29.
The Oscars, meanwhile, are determined by some 7,000 members of the Academy, the largest branch of which is comprised of actors. While not all SAG-AFTRA members belong to the Academy, most members of the actors branch of the Academy belong to SAG-AFTRA, so the SAG Awards offer us a bit of insight into their thinking.
Some SAG Awards, on the film side, have proven to be more predictive than others. The individual acting awards tend to be very prescient. Each of the last three years, all four SAG Award winners went on to win at the Oscars as well. And in the 21 previous years in which those awards have been presented, the Academy differed on best actor only four times; best actress only six times; best supporting actor only eight times; and best supporting actress only seven times.
The best ensemble SAG Award, however, which is regarded as the top SAG honor, has a less stellar track record. It was first presented at the second SAG Awards, and only half of its 20 winners have gone on to win the best picture Oscar. This may be because SAG-AFTRA members approach it differently: some see it as a prize for the best overall cast, others see it as a prize for the best large cast and still others treat it as a best picture award, since there isn't one at the SAG Awards.
Read More: SAG Awards: Hollywood Reporter's Live Blog
Sometimes the best ensemble SAG Award has been the only one to anticipate surprise best picture Oscar winners, such as 1998's Shakespeare in Love and 2005's Crash; other times, as in the cases of 2006's Little Miss Sunshine, 2009's Inglourious Basterds and 2011's The Help, it offered -positives. Regardless, only one film in two decades has won the best picture Oscar without being at least nominated for the prize, and that was 1995's Braveheart, the first-ever recipient.
It has been deemed almost essential to send hard-copy screeners of a film to all of SAG-AFTRA in order to have a real shot at winning any major SAG Awards prize — especially since doing so propelled Crash to its big win a decade ago. This year, hard-copy screeners were sent to all the members by the distributors of Beasts of No Nation, The Big Short, Room, Spotlight and Straight Outta Compton; meanwhile, the same cannot be said for the distributors of The Revenant and Trumbo, which apparently concluded that doing so was not worth the immense cost and/or would not markedly change their expected results.
SAG-AFTRA is the largest union of actors, representing some 160,000 who work across the media. SAG Awards nominees are determined by nominating committees comprised of small percentages of the whole membership. A heavily-courted group of 2,250 actors chose the film nominees and 2,250 actors chose the TV nominees during a voting period that spanned Nov. 18 through Dec. 7, while winners were chosen by the entire membership during a voting period that spanned Dec. 16 through just yesterday, Jan. 29.
The Oscars, meanwhile, are determined by some 7,000 members of the Academy, the largest branch of which is comprised of actors. While not all SAG-AFTRA members belong to the Academy, most members of the actors branch of the Academy belong to SAG-AFTRA, so the SAG Awards offer us a bit of insight into their thinking.
Some SAG Awards, on the film side, have proven to be more predictive than others. The individual acting awards tend to be very prescient. Each of the last three years, all four SAG Award winners went on to win at the Oscars as well. And in the 21 previous years in which those awards have been presented, the Academy differed on best actor only four times; best actress only six times; best supporting actor only eight times; and best supporting actress only seven times.
The best ensemble SAG Award, however, which is regarded as the top SAG honor, has a less stellar track record. It was first presented at the second SAG Awards, and only half of its 20 winners have gone on to win the best picture Oscar. This may be because SAG-AFTRA members approach it differently: some see it as a prize for the best overall cast, others see it as a prize for the best large cast and still others treat it as a best picture award, since there isn't one at the SAG Awards.
Read More: SAG Awards: Hollywood Reporter's Live Blog
Sometimes the best ensemble SAG Award has been the only one to anticipate surprise best picture Oscar winners, such as 1998's Shakespeare in Love and 2005's Crash; other times, as in the cases of 2006's Little Miss Sunshine, 2009's Inglourious Basterds and 2011's The Help, it offered -positives. Regardless, only one film in two decades has won the best picture Oscar without being at least nominated for the prize, and that was 1995's Braveheart, the first-ever recipient.
It has been deemed almost essential to send hard-copy screeners of a film to all of SAG-AFTRA in order to have a real shot at winning any major SAG Awards prize — especially since doing so propelled Crash to its big win a decade ago. This year, hard-copy screeners were sent to all the members by the distributors of Beasts of No Nation, The Big Short, Room, Spotlight and Straight Outta Compton; meanwhile, the same cannot be said for the distributors of The Revenant and Trumbo, which apparently concluded that doing so was not worth the immense cost and/or would not markedly change their expected results.
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