Screen Actors Guild awards 2021: actors of color sweep for first time
At the Screen Actors Guild (Sag) awards on Sunday, actors of color achieved a first when they swept the individual film categories. The Sag ceremony is often seen as a bellwether for the Oscars, which will be handed out on 25 April.
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At the Sag awards, Viola Davis won best female actor for the title role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom while her co-star, the late Chadwick Boseman, won best male actor for his portrayal of trumpet player Levee Green, his final film role before his death in August last year.
Also announced as winners were the British actor Daniel Kaluuya, best male supporting actor as Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah, and Youn Yuh-jung, best female supporting actor for her portrayal of a Korean grandmother visiting her family in Arkansas, in Minari.
The Oscars and other major award shows have come under increasing pressure for being dominated by white actors, writers and directors.
The 2021 Sag awards, the 27th, were also notable for recognising actors in films that not only featured ensemble casts composed mostly of people of color, but also examined the experiences of marginalized groups.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the story of a Black blues band’s struggle to work together under the pressures of finding success. Judas and the Black Messiah looks at the period leading up to the assassination of Hampton, a Chicago-based deputy chairman of the Black Panther party targeted by the FBI. Minari considers a Korean American family’s attempt to put down roots in rural America in the 1980s.
Viola Davis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Photograph: David Lee/AP/Netflix
Youn made history as the first Asian and first Asian woman to win an individual Sag award.
Accepting her fifth Sag award, Davis thanked playwright August Wilson when she said: “Thank you, August, for leaving a legacy for actors of color that we can relish the rest of our lives.”
Kaluuya thanked Hampton “for guiding us and showing us his power, even though 52 years later”. He also thanked Boseman.
In 2019, Boseman gave a memorable speech at the Sag awards. Speaking on behalf of the Black Panther cast when the film won the top award, best ensemble performance, he said: “We all know what it’s like to be told that there is not a place for you to be featured. Yet you are young, gifted and Black.”
This year the same award reflected an increased appreciation of diversity. Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 won, but nominated films included Da 5 Bloods, One Night in Miami and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Kelvin Harrison Jr appears on screen after the announcement of his Screen Actors Guild award win for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture for The Trial of The Chicago 7. Photograph: AP
The Trial of the Chicago 7 is based on the prosecution of individuals for allegedly inciting famous riots at the 1968 Democratic convention. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays the Black Panther party co-founder Bobby Seale while Kelvin Harrison Jr plays Hampton.
Sacha Baron Cohen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are among other cast members. Accepting the award, Frank Langella, who plays the trial judge, drew parallels between the unrest of the 1960s and protests today.
“‘God, give us leaders,’ said the Rev Martin Luther King before he was shot down in cold blood on this very date in 1968 – a profound injustice,” said Langella, citing events leading up to those dramatised in The Trial of the Chicago 7. “The Rev King was right. We need leaders to guide us toward hating each other less.”
Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer in August, was posthumously voted best actor for 1920s blues drama Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in the 2021 Sag awards. Photograph: Valérie Macon/AFP/Getty Images
The Sags are considered a bellwether for the Oscars in part because actors comprise the largest branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Sag winners often go on to take Oscars.
In 2020, the South Korean film Parasite won best ensemble performance, then won best picture at the Academy Awards. All the individual Sag winners – Renée Zellweger, Brad Pitt, Laura Dern, Joaquin Phoenix – won at the Oscars too.
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Nomadland is considered a favorite to win best picture at this year’s Oscars. A victory for the film starring Frances McDormand would be a win for the Chinese film-maker Chloé Zhao, also the first woman of color to be nominated for best director.
In television categories at the Sag awards, the ensembles of Schitt’s Creek (comedy series) and The Crown (drama series) won out. Other winners included Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit), Gillian Anderson (The Crown), Jason Sudeikis (Ted Lasso), Jason Bateman (Ozark) and Mark Ruffalo (I Know This Much Is True).