CNN
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The running joke on Sunday night was that the SAG Award, known as “the actor,” was incredibly heavy, even while there were some pretty light moments during the show.
The 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards opened with a skit in which Jean Smart appeared as her “Hacks” character Deborah Vance, an aging standup comedian, as she and some of her costars mistakenly believe Vance was booked to host the show.
The event’s actual host, Kristen Bell, jokingly apologized to Smart – who wasn’t present, but later won an award – and then borrowed a song from her hit film “Frozen” to pay tribute to the start many actors got in the business.
Paying tribute to actors’ first roles… and Los Angeles
After mentioning how everyone in the room started out with a shared dream “to be a working artist, and it’s a beautiful thing,” Bell called Los Angeles the “backdrop” to that dream, “and it too is a beautiful thing.”
“The city and the people in it have been through the ringer,” she added, in reference to last month’s devastating wildfires in the area, before gesturing to tables in the room where various local first responders sat.
She then sang “Do You Want To Be An Actor” (to the tune of “Do You Want To Build a Snowman”) as footage of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars in their earliest roles – from Harrison Ford to Sheryl Lee Ralph and even Bell herself – played onscreen.
“Scream queen” Jamie Lee Curtis later provided a moment of levity when presenting the award for male actor in a TV movie or limited series.
“And the actor goes to the man that gave me Covid at the Golden Globes, Colin Farrell,” she announced.
Farrell, who won for his role in “The Penguin,” admitted that he was “Guilty as charged” and added that his “The Banshee of Inisherin” costar Brendan Gleeson “f***ing gave it to me, so I was just spreading the love.”
Impromptu ‘Law & Order’ drinking challenge
It’s a joke in Hollywood that you aren’t really even an actor if you haven’t appeared on the “Law & Order” franchise, and the award show poked some fun at that.
“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” Mariska Hargitay introduced a montage of some of the many, many stars who early in their careers appeared in the “L&O” universe, from Sarah Paulson to Zoe Saldana, Tony Hale, Liza Colon-Zayas, Keke Palmer and Colman Domingo.
Palmer and Domingo took to the stage after to present the award for female actor in a supporting role in a motion picture, but first asked the audience in the Shrine Auditorium to “take a drink if they’ve ever been in an episode of ‘Law & Order.” Domingo joked that the “whole room would be lit,” given the large number that applied to. Sure enough, the camera panned to many stars taking a sip, including Timothée Chalamet.
Selena Gomez had some fun with her “Only Murders in the Building” costars Steve Martin and Martin Short – who weren’t present – after their show won the best ensemble in comedy series award, which left her completely shocked. “We never win. This is so weird!” she exclaimed when she took the stage.
“Marty and Steve aren’t here because they don’t really care,” Gomez then deadpanned.
(For the record, Martin recently shared that Short had contracted Covid after attending “Saturday Night Live’s” recent 50th anniversary special.)
Not that there weren’t moments of seriousness.
During her acceptance speech for the SAG lifetime achievement award, Jane Fonda reminded the room and viewers that she began her career in the late 1950s and made references to defining events in history, like the Civil Rights movement, and added, “we are in our documentary moment” right now.
The 87-year-old actress, who is as much an activist as a performer, showed her spirit in that realm has not flagged.
“Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke,” Fonda told the audience. “And by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.”
She also had a warning for the turbulent times in which we live.
“A whole lot of people are going to be really hurt by what is happening, what is coming our way,” she said. “And even if they’re of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge, but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what’s coming at us.”
Actress Fran Drescher, who is president of SAG-AFTRA, was equally feisty as she spoke of the Los Angeles wildfires and shared her own story of evacuating.
“Wake up humans,” she yelled. “We can’t let greed continue to deny climate change!”