Online Reporter
LOS ANGELES. − Conclave was the big winner at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards on Sunday, leaving the Oscars race too close to call with one week to go.
The Pope selection drama won the ceremony’s top prize, best ensemble cast, continuing its late-season momentum after taking best film at last week’s Baftas.
Other winners included Demi Moore and Timothée Chalamet, both of whom head into Sunday’s Academy Awards with their chances of winning boosted. British actor Ralph Fiennes accepted Conclave’s prize, thanking director Edward Berger for his “perception, insight and care”.
Earlier in the ceremony, his co-star Isabella Rossellini said the film’s cast “want to wish Pope Francis a quick recovery” after he was diagnosed with pneumonia.
The SAG winners are voted for by fellow actors. In a night peppered with celebrations of the actors’ union, Fiennes said: “We do recognise the supreme importance of community in our work and in the world.”
Conclave, which focuses on a group of gossipy and scheming cardinals in Rome, failed to win any other awards, but its victory in the top category leaves it in a strong position ahead of the Oscars on 2 March.
The best picture race has been wide open this year, with The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez winning at the Golden Globes, Conclave at the Baftas and now SAG Awards, and Anora at a string of industry guilds including those voted by producers, writers and directors.
Moore’s win for body horror The Substance is the latest twist in a tight best actress race − the category is seen as a dead heat between her and relative newcomer Mikey Madison, who won the Bafta.
“This is extraordinary, and so deeply meaningful,” Moore said as she collected her SAG trophy.
She recalled getting her first SAG card aged 15 “changed my life because it gave me meaning, it gave me purpose, and it gave me direction”.
“I was a kid on my own who had no blueprint for life, and I certainly knew nothing about acting. But I watched, and I listened and I learned from all of you.
“You have all been my greatest teachers, and I am so grateful that I have continued over these many years to be able to try, and sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, but to be able to keep going.”
The Substance sees Moore play an ageing aerobics instructor who takes a black market drug to create a younger and more beautiful version of herself.
Elsewhere, Chalamet was a surprise winner in best actor thanks to his portrayal of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, beating Adrien Brody who has been winning the category throughout awards season.
“I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role and how much this means to me,” Chalamet said in his speech.
“But the truth is, this was five-and-a-half years of my life, I poured everything I have into playing this incomparable artist, Mr Bob Dylan, an American hero, and it was the honour of a lifetime playing him.”
He concluded: “The truth is, I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats, I’m inspired by the greats.
“This doesn’t signify that, but it’s a little more fuel, a little more ammo to keep going.”
A Real Pain star Kieran Culkin was named best supporting actor for his performance as one of two cousins travelling across Poland in remembrance of their grandmother.
“Thank you Sag-Aftra for this incredibly heavy award,” he joked as he was handed his trophy on stage.
He described the award as a “huge honour”, and thanked the sister of his director Jesse Eisenberg for suggesting him for the role.
“He cast me in this movie without auditioning me, or seeing my work in anything,” Culkin recalled, “but he cast me because his sister told him to, so yes thank you for Jesse for putting me in this movie, but I want to take a moment to thank your sister Hallie.
“Thank you Hallie for thinking of me and putting my name in your stupid brother’s ear.” − BBC
