Photo: MATT WINKELMEYER
By Velvet Winter, ABC
Actor Jane Fonda used her stage time at this week's Screen Actors Guild awards to deliver a rallying cry for her industry to band together in the face of hard times, and to give unions the respect they deserve.
The two-time Oscar-winner and lauded activist was honoured at the 2025 SAG ceremony with the Life Achievement Award. Presenter Julia Louis-Dreyfus read out Fonda's laundry list of awards and achievements as she welcomed her onto the stage.
"The woman is 87 - for the love of God, slow down Jane, you're making us all look like shit," Louis-Dreyfus said to thunderous laughs.
Fonda then went on to blow the audience away with a speech that called on her union mates to fight for their community.
"This award means the world to me … which is good because I'm not done. I have had a really weird career, totally unstrategic. I retired for 15 years and then I came back at 65, which is not usual. Then I made one of my most successful movies in my 80s and, probably in my 90s, I'll be doing my own stunts in an action movie," Fonda said.
"Have you heard the phrase, 'It's OK to be a late bloomer as long as you don't miss the flower show?' I'm a late bloomer and this is my flower show."
Fonda used her time on stage to pay respect to unions, nodding to the 2023 SAG AFTRA strikes that brought Hollywood to a standstill.
"[Unions] have our backs, they bring us into community and they give us power. Community means power. This is especially important when workers' power is being attacked and community is being weakened," she said.
The 87-year-old then urged the people in her industry to stand together in the face of a tumultuous political landscape.
"What [actors] create is empathy … empathy is not weak or 'woke'," she said.
"And, by the way, woke just means you care about other people.
"A whole lot of people are going to be hurt by what is coming our way and, even if they are from a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge and welcome them into our tent - because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what is coming at us."
Fonda recalled that she made her first movie at the tail-end of McCarthyism in the US - the period in US history when censorship, fear of Communism and persecution of the LGBTQIA+ community in Hollywood was rampant - and how she saw so many careers destroyed.
"Have any of you watched a documentary of the great social movements … and asked yourself, 'Would I have been brave enough to walk across the bridge?'" she said.
"We don't have to wonder any more because we are in our documentary moment. This is it!
"This is big-time serious, so let's be brave … we must not isolate, we must stay in community, we must protect the vulnerable, we must find ways to project an inspiring vision of the future, one that is beckoning and welcoming … let's make it so."
Timothée Chalamet becomes youngest Best Actor SAG winner
Photo: MATT WINKELMEYER
If there's one thing the SAG awards all but locked in for next week's Oscars, it's that Kieran Culkin is winning Best Supporting Actor for A Real Pain. Culkin has won the category in almost every awards ceremony this season - including today's SAG awards.
Culkin used his acceptance speech time to take a lighthearted swipe at the assumed Best Actor frontrunner Adrien Brody.
"I don't think anyone can hold this for 45 seconds," Culkin said, complaining about the SAG award's heft.
"Which is the allotted time, Adrien Brody, OK? 45 seconds."
The comment became more awkward at the end of the evening when, despite winning at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, Brody lost the Best Actor gong to Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown.
The win means the 29-year-old is now the youngest ever recipient of this award, taking over from Nicolas Cage, who won when he was 32 for Leaving Las Vegas.
Chalamet, who has been campaigning hard for the Best Actor Oscar all season, made the most of his time onstage.
"I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role, but the truth is this was five and a half years of my life," Chalamet said.
"I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Bob Dylan, and a true American hero, and it's an honour to play him."
Shōgun bows out with one final sweep
Photo: AMY SUSSMAN
The SAGs mark the end of the awards journey for television, and let acclaimed series Shōgun take a victory lap.
Picking up four awards from five nominations, it was a great way to finish off a tremendous awards season for the historical drama set in 1600s Japan. This included "outstanding acting" gongs for both of its leads, Anna Sawai and Hiroyuki Sanada.
"Thank you for respecting our culture and believing in us," Sanada said while accepting the award for Best Ensemble in a Drama series.
"It was a great journey, 70 per cent Japanese and with subtitles, it must have been a gamble for them, but they are so brave.
"Shōgun has shown us that acting is a universal language."
Where does that leave us for the Oscars?
Chalamet's win throws a little bit of intrigue into the Best Actor race which, until now, has been seen as a lock for Brody.
No actor in history has won the Academy Award for Best Actor with just a SAG award under their belt, but could lil Timmy Tim make history twice in one week? Only time will tell.
Emilia Pérez's Zoe Saldaña should start writing her Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech after taking out the category yet again at the SAG awards.
Demi Moore also leapt ahead of her competitors with her SAG win for Best Actress, placing her back in front after she lost the BAFTA to Mikey Madison in Anora.
As for Best Picture, Conclave's big win at the SAGs, combined with its Best Film win at the BAFTAs, has put some steam behind the religious drama going into the Oscars. However, it still faces a hefty battle against The Brutalist, which took the top gong at the Golden Globes.
Don't discount Sean Baker's Anora just yet - while it was shut out of today's SAG awards, big wins at the Producers Guild and Directors Guild awards, as well as Madison's surprise win at the BAFTAs, means it could still be in with a shot.
