Netflix Strives For A Kooky SAG Awards, While Hollywood Superstars Fran Drescher and Barbra Streisand Brought the Award Show Gold

variety.com:

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic Netflix made clear from the start that they were running a different kind of awards show. Presenter and quasi-host Idris Elba indicated to the attended nominees that, in their speeches, they were free to let expletives fly, but that none of them should say anything “you wouldn’t say in front of Oprah.” (Shortly after that, Meryl Streep walked directly into the mic stand — seeming to suggest a kooky and wild awards show that didn’t quite arrive.) After the SAG Awards had fully moved to streaming — after a liminal year, in 2023, in which the ceremony had aired on Netflix’s YouTube channel, preceded by a long tenure on the Turner cable networks — it felt like a sort of safe space for speaking frankly.

But shifting the script doesn’t necessarily match the priorities of actors during awards season. And while the ceremony deserves some credit for reinventing itself, its primary function was fueling the conversation about the forthcoming Oscars.

In this, it provided plenty of fuel — with Lily Gladstone and Cillian Murphy winning the top film acting prizes in hotly contested races. (Both of them gave lovely speeches, too.) The everything-goes atmosphere promised at the top of the show wasn’t what made Netflix’s SAG Awards distinctive.

What was unique was the decision to have it be all content, no breaks: What would have historically been spaces for ads were filled by post-win interviews, conducted by “Queer Eye” star Tan France, with the likes of Ayo Edebiri and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. (France, for instance, asked Edebiri what she thought Oprah Winfrey and Meryl Streep thought of her acceptance speech; Edebiri was pleasantly, and predictably, self-deprecating.) Both gave lovely interviews; both.