Entertainment

Pedro Pascal breaks 'Succession's' dominance at 2024 SAG Awards: live updates

Published

5 months ago

February 24, 2024

Pedro Pascal breaks 'Succession's' dominance at 2024 SAG Awards: live updates

After months of direct confrontation in a bitter Hollywood strike, the Screen Actors Guild and Netflix are offering each other a two-hour olive branch: The 30th SAG Awards are streaming on the platform tonight for the first time ever.

Many hopes hang from either side of that branch. SAG is betting that Netflix can give its awards show, traditionally viewed as a predictive precursor to the Oscars, a much wider audience than it reached in previous years. Netflix is determined to prove that it can broadcast a live event as successfully as any television network.

Of course, it’s the biggest stars that will be the draw on Saturday, including a rare public appearance by Barbra Streisand, who will receive SAG’s Life Achievement Award. She’s showing up because, as she recently told The Times’ Glenn Whipp, she liked the fact that “so many actors marched and worked very hard to get what they campaigned for,” and also because “they told me in advance that I got the award! No trauma or drama.”

Follow along throughout the night as Mary McNamara, Meredith Blake and Josh Rottenberg report on the proceedings live. Here’s hoping that the “no drama” rule doesn’t extend to the show.

Winners list | All the looks from the red carpet

5:43 p.m. I’m officially missing commercials at this point. But the “Lord of the Rings” reunion of Sean Astin and Elijah Wood presenting female actor in a supporting role (motion picture) makes up for it. As does Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s win for “The Holdovers.” “For every actor waiting in the wings, you life can change in a day,” she says. “It’s not if but when. Keep going.” —MM

5:36 p.m. USC gets a shout out as junior Storm Reid says she basically walked over to the Shrine from her dorm to present, with Phil Dunster, male actor in a drama series. Which, astonishingly, Pedro Pascal wins. The iron rule of “Succession” is broken. —MM

It’s hard to begrudge someone so delightful, even if he appears to be wearing the “Seinfeld” puffy shirt. –MB

Only a quarter of the way through the show and Pedro Pascal just dropped the third or fourth f-bomb of the night. “It’s Netflix,” he says. Seems like if nothing else the streaming era could bring us swear-ier awards shows. —JR

5:27 p.m. Melissa McCarthy and Billie Eilish present best female actor in a comedy series — McCarthy tells Eilish she met her “in utero” (does this count in the “vaginal” list, Meredith?) because Eilish’s mother was McCarthy’s improv teacher. Then she asks Eilish to sign her face, something that proceeds to happen. With a Sharpie. —MM

I appreciated McCarthy’s commitment to the bit but I can’t help feeling sad she ruined a very nice makeup job. That’s what we call acting, I guess! Also, as I learned from the pandemic, hand sanitizer is great for getting Sharpie stains out. The more you know! —MB

Ayo Edebiri wins for “The Bear.” “Oh, she won another one,” my daughter says as she wanders into the room. —MM

Ayo Edebiri wins the SAG Award for female actor in a comedy series.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

5:23 p.m. While Tan France interviews White backstage, attendees in the room are treating it like a commercial break and running to the bathrooms and checking their phones. —JR

5:19 p.m. Glen Powell is not wearing his wrist corsage as he and Issa Rae present female actor in a television movie or limited series. I am very disappointed. Be braver, Glen. Ali Wong wins for “Beef” and has divested herself of her fancy cut-outs, which would also be disappointing but Wong can never disappoint. —MM

It honestly seems like a good idea when you’re in a crowded room and are at least theoretically supposed to be eating food. I need the behind-the-scenes story of how this happened and which bathroom she ducked into with her stylist to make this happen. —MB

"The Devil Wears Prada" costars Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway at the 30th Screen Actors Guild Awards.

5:12 p.m. There’s a “Devil Wears Prada” moment as Meryl Streep is joined by Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway to give the best actor in comedy series award. (Honestly, every awards show should have a “The Devil Wears Prada” moment.)

Unsurprisingly, Jeremy Allen White of “The Bear” wins for male actor in a comedy series. —MM

Weird that they let people curse on stage but then bleeped out the curse words in the clips from “Ted Lasso.” White’s win for continues his total domination of the awards circuit and underwear ads everywhere. —MB

“Wow, they give you a lot of time at this one,” White says, wrapping up his acceptance speech. Indeed winners won’t need to worry about getting played off the stage tonight because … streaming! —JR

5:03 p.m. Show is starting, Hannah Waddington is telling a great story about having a mouse in her dress when she was starring in “Spamalot” and all I can think about is the salmon. Thanks, Josh.

Idris Elba the mounted the stage, saying he can’t wait until he can go home and watch the show being recommended to him by Netflix based on all the other things he has watched that he has starred in — before pivoting to a brief shout-out to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Sorry, it is still weird that months after the vitriolic “Netflix strike,” the SAG Awards are on Netflix. I guess that’s Hollywood. —MM

Idris Elba photographed during the 30th Screen Actors Guild Awards.

4:57 p.m. It seems noteworthy that there has not been a single mention (that I noticed) of the actors’ strike so far on the Netflix red carpet. It’s like Mom and Dad have gotten back together after a brief separation and nobody wants to talk about it. —MB

Noteworthy and a bit weird — it is tough to imagine that the irony of Netflix hosting the SAG Awards will go unremarked upon during the show, since so many points of contract contention centered around streaming’s disruption of Hollywood’s business model. Not surprisingly, none of the grey — correction, silver — carpet questions have touched on it. This is a Netflix production, after all. (Random shout out to Welteroth, who is one of the best on-carpet interviewers I have seen in my long career covering these things.) Waiting to see if there are any mentions during acceptance speeches. Will be very disappointed if there are not. —MM

With the show soon to start, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland is speaking to attendees about the important gains made during the strike. “This room is a living metaphor of the unity and solidarity that brought us to this point.” They also showed a rousing clip reel of scenes from the strike to big applause. Hard to tell if any of the striking actors shown in the footage were picketing in front of Netflix headquarters. —JR

Hannah Waddingham during the 30th Screen Actors Guild Awards.

4:51 p.m. Hannah Waddingham wins best-dressed, in my esteemed opinion, for carrying a homemade cardboard clutch made by her daughter. It’s honestly the chicest thing I’ve seen all night. —MB

And Idris Elba is in the building. All is well. —MM

Elba is set to open and close the show, according to the producers, but they’re not going so far as calling him the “host.” —JR

4:48 p.m. Kieran Culkin went Full Hugh Grant”on Welteroth, giving her grief for leaning on him and taking off her painful shoes on the red carpet. I am always here for a red carpet grump. —MB

Meanwhile, Billie Eilish just confessed to teleprompter-phobia. Well, we all have to be afraid of something. —MM

4:44 p.m. Wait, are they giving awards on the carpet? Apparently so. For stunt ensemble in a TV series, it’s “The Last of Us”; for film, “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I.” It feels a bit cavalier and anticlimactic considering, you know, all those freaking stunts involved. I mean they could have had Tom Cruise jump all the main tables on a motorcycle or something. —MM

Tan France shows off his unorthodox bow tie at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

4:39 p.m. If anyone watching at home is curious what attendees will be eating, the “light dinner” will be chive-crusted salmon. It’s served cold, which is good because it’s been sitting out on the tables for a while now and very few people have taken their seats yet. —JR

Josh, that item about the cold salmon should have come with a trigger warning. Maybe it’s a good thing everyone in Hollywood is on Ozempic these days. —MB

And they are mid-awards season. My favorite memory from the post-Oscar’s Governors Ball is seeing all the stars make a beeline for the bread baskets. Finally, they can eat! Honestly, you could lose a finger trying to claim a pretzel roll. —MM

4:34 p.m. Sorry, did Tan say he wanted Jessica Chastain’s babies? This night is really taking an unexpected turn. —MB

I don’t know, France and Debicki and Welteroth and Chastain were all talking at each other from separate parts of the carpet via screens. Which was kind of weird. Then Chastain chatted with Bradley Cooper, who she apparently knows from PTA? Meanwhile, Jon Hamm was standing in the background looking like he can’t understand why no one is interviewing him. Also, I always forget that Alan Ruck is married to Mireille Enos, who looks amazing. —MM

4:29 p.m. For reasons of his own, Tan France just gave Glen Powell a wrist corsage, which Powell misidentified as a boutonniere. Having not seen a wrist corsage since my junior prom, never mind at a Hollywood awards show, I am barely able to obsess about Cillian Murphy’s accent. —MM

I can’t help but notice the prevalence of Netflix stars on the red carpet so far, including Wong (“Beef”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”) and Elizabeth Debicki (“The Crown”). I’m glad they let Murphy speak for a minute or two because I could listen to that accent all day. —MB

Elizabeth Debicki ("The Crown") arriving at the 30th Screen Actors Guild Awards.

4:22 p.m. The pre-show is underway, and we’re looking at the grey carpet with Tan France — in an insane… bow tie? Boba straw? Inflatable chopstick? — and Elaine Welteroth, who gave us a look at hot fashion of SAG Awards past before kicking things off with Ali Wong wearing a black and white number decorated by what looked like a bunch of artisanal paper snowflakes. Also, my first tiny telecast glitch. —MM

Ali Wong was the first — but let’s hope not the last — person to mention “vaginal birth” tonight on the carpet. So cheers to that. —MB

4:15 p.m. Super excited to be watching the Screen Actors Guild Awards as Netflix continues its attempt to prove it can do everything broadcast/cable can except breaking news. (When Netflix announces it is entering the journalism space, you heard it here first.) I was tiny bit concerned as I struggled to find the pre-show coverage listed anywhere, though: I had to search to find the listing for the actual show, which says it starts at 5 p.m. Pacific. Instead I was being urged to re-watch “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” which swept the awards last year. And frankly, it is tempting. —MM

Same thing over here, Mary, except the algorithm suggested I continue watching “The Crown” and “Love Is Blind,” because it knows I love shows about emotionally stunted people in doomed relationships. Netflix is known for eschewing traditional marketing in favor of using “the algorithm” to suggest certain shows based on “taste clusters” — which are not, in fact, a brand of granola. But the thing about live TV is you kind of need to know when it’s on in order to, ya know, watch it. And if the algorithm can’t figure out that I — a person who writes about entertainment for a living and grew up watching every awards show known to man — might be interested in watching celebrities win trophies and make tearful speeches, then it needs to do better. —MB

Yes, it was kind of weird to be sitting here staring at a screen that said only “It’s almost time; the live event will start soon” instead of, I don’t know, the final minutes of a re-run of “The Closer.” —MM

I am primarily concerned that the whole “No ads” thing will mean no snack breaks, which are truly essential to home viewing of awards shows. Mary, how do you plan to make it through two whole hours without going to the kitchen to refill the popcorn? —MB

Criminy. I hadn’t thought about that. And with the SAG Awards there are no “boring” categories. (Sorry sound editing/sound mixing!) —MM

Entertainment

Video game actors are on strike. Here's what that means

Published

48 mins ago

July 27, 2024

Press Room

Video game actors are on strike. Here's what that means

Video game performers are officially on strike.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists called a walkout this week on behalf of roughly 2,600 actors doing voice-over, motion-capture and other work in the gaming industry.

Union leaders took the step after they could not reach an agreement on artificial intelligence terms while bargaining for a new contract with the top video game companies, including Activision, Electronic Arts, Insomniac and Blindlight.

“We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement Thursday. “Enough is enough.”

Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game producers, said in a statement: “We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations.”

How did we get here?

The union has been in contract negotiations with the video game companies since 2022, and the Interactive Media Agreement expired that November.

Video game performers are seeking a new agreement that will require video game producers to obtain their consent and compensate them when using AI to replicate their voices or likenesses. They are also demanding wage increases to keep up with inflation, more rest time and set medics for hazardous jobs.

Tensions escalated in September 2023, when union members voted 98% in favor of authorizing a strike.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator and national executive director of SAG-AFTRA, said at the time that the companies were not “willing to meaningfully engage on the critical issues,” including compensation, AI and safety.

The companies vowed to “negotiate in good faith to reach an agreement that reflects the important contributions” of game performers.

On July 20, the union’s national board of directors granted Crabtree-Ireland the authority to call a strike, citing a lingering dispute over AI.

How will this affect the video game companies?

Much like last year’s Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes against the film and TV studios and streaming services, this one could potentially lead to longer-term production lulls, particularly for games scheduled for release in 2025 or 2026.

Production is expensive and on a tight schedule, a reality that doesn’t give video game companies a lot of margin to “sit this out,” said Joost van Dreunen, an adjunct assistant professor at NYU Stern School of Business and author of “One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games.”

For instance, companies can’t afford to miss out on the all-important holiday spending season. November and December traditionally account for about half of annual game sales, he said.

“If you don’t get things across the line, if you can’t finish your work and release it on time, you’re going to miss a very, very important window, and that’s going to hurt you financially,” Van Dreunen said.

But not all games are covered by the strike. According to contract provisions, games that were in production when the union provided the company with notice of its termination are not subject to the strike order, according to a SAG-AFTRA spokesperson.

What’s next?

As of Friday, SAG-AFTRA video game actors are barred from lending their services to any struck games.

Those services may include acting, singing, dancing, stunts, motion capture, auditions, camera tests, rehearsals, authorizing the use of one’s voice or likeness, background and stand-in work.

Covered performers are also prohibited from promoting struck games via social media, interviews, conventions, festivals, award shows, podcast appearances or any other platform. (The ongoing San Diego Comic-Con has been exempt from this rule due to its proximity to the strike announcement.)

The union has indicated that it will also hold pickets as part of the walkout.

Only time will tell how long it will take the union and the companies to reach a tentative agreement and end the work stoppage.

The last strike by video game actors stretched on for nearly a year, from October 2016 to September 2017. Back then, AI had yet to become a major concern and performers were pushing for residual-like payments based on video game sales — similar to how film and TV actors are compensated for their work.

Van Dreunen said companies would likely try to resolve the contract negotiations by September, but at the latest, by the end of the year, before answering to investors during their next earnings calls.

Movie Reviews

'Deadpool & Wolverine' movie review: Fox's last dance, Deadpool & Wolverine bromance

Published

7 hours ago

July 27, 2024

Press Room

'Deadpool & Wolverine' movie review: Fox's last dance, Deadpool & Wolverine bromance

Superhero fatigue is real. With no good movies recently, Marvel has lost its course. But brace yourselves — straight from 20th Century Fox, sorry, Disney — a hero makes his grand MCU entrance. He’s the messiah, the merc with a mouth; he is… The Marvel Jesus. Buckle up, peanut, because this isn’t your average cape-and-tights movie — or is it?

Directed by Shawn Levy (‘Free Guy’), this third instalment is a hot mess —kind of like Wade Wilson himself on a bad hair day. Just as the world’s falling apart (again), the Time Variance Authority’s Paradox (Matthew Macfyden) recruits him to put his timeline out of its misery. Deadpool refuses and drags the worst variant of the Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) out of retirement to help stop this crazy scheme. They are sent to the ‘Void’ — yes, the same one from ‘Loki’ season one, episode five, now ruled by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), Professor Charles Xavier’s evil twin.

The film takes you on a wild ride with surprise appearances from the Fox Universe. The plot is a bit shaky with jokes that sometimes fall flat, but it’s saved by some really cool action sequences, with slow-motion effects set to popular ’90s tunes. It’s a fun, if messy, farewell to the Fox universe, offering a peek at what mutant battles might look like in the MCU — and it doesn’t look too bad. Ryan Reynolds keeps it lively with his snappy humour, and Hugh Jackman proves yet again why he’s the ultimate Wolverine, leaving us with a touching montage of his ‘X-Men’ moments during the end credits.

So, does this Marvel messiah live up to the hype? Well, yes and no. Deadpool doesn’t exactly ace it. He’s the irritating but quirky hero we didn’t even know we needed, flipping the MCU on its head and turning multiversal crises into comedy gold. Marvel dug deep into the Fox universe, like scraping the last bits of chicken from a biryani pot.

The movie might do well at the box office, but they really need to sort out their timelines (pun intended) before they kick off the Mutant Saga.

Published 26 July 2024, 20:20 IST

Entertainment

Review: Olympics opening ceremony shined with best of Paris and France, but failed as TV

Published

8 hours ago

July 27, 2024

Press Room

Review: Olympics opening ceremony shined with best of Paris and France, but failed as TV

France took the opening ceremony of the Olympics out of the customary arena and onto the River Seine — and into the rain — Friday in what was undeniably a bold, unprecedented and, given the security nightmare, crazy take on the event. An Olympics whose motto is “Games Wide Open” ironically came with fences, checkpoints and police and soldiers numbering in the many tens of thousands. But they remained practically invisible through the broadcast, once again from NBC and also streaming on Peacock.

Almost nothing was revealed about the program ahead of time, past a few facts and figures — 300,000 spectators expected, a 3.7-mile route running east downriver from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Eiffel Tower and Trocadéro, some 90 boats carrying 10,000 athletes, 12 thematic “scenes.” With little to go on, it was tempting to imagine what those scenes might encompass. Bearded existentialists drinking apricot cocktails? A nude descending a staircase? Jean-Pierre Léaud making one last appearance as Antoine Doinel? Striking railway workers? The band Telephone reunited? I was hoping to see at least one performer dressed as Jacques Tati’s M. Hulot, though I would have made it 100. Would there be mimes?

The answer to all those questions was no. Working with a team that included a historian, novelist, screenwriter and playwright, to say nothing of the choreographers and costumers, director Thomas Jolly — known for a 24-hour marathon staging of Shakespeare’s three “Henry VI” plays plus “Richard III” — cooked up something at once stranger and more appropriate: daffy, sexy, occasionally alarming — I would not have expected the decapitated Marie Antoinettes — and, one would say, quintessentially French. Even the rain, which, having arrived, stayed to enjoy itself, had a sort of Parisian quality, adding drama and romance. Though, of course, that part wasn’t scripted.

Performers during the Paris opening ceremony, which featured beheaded Marie Antoinettes.

(Bernat Armangue / Associated Press)

Taking the Games into the city center and putting the ceremony onto the river was a smart idea to begin with. You don’t go to Paris to stay indoors unless it’s to look at art or eat things cooked in butter; and if you’ve seen the inside of one over-lit stadium, you’ve seen them all. The Seine put the athletes, riding on their larger and smaller bateaux mouches, within spitting distance of Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Tuileries, Place Concorde, the Grand Palais and the Eiffel Tower.

There had been a few performers mentioned beforehand, including French Malian superstar Aya Nakamura; the “eco-metal” band Gojira, which, with its frequent collaborator the Franco-Swiss opera singer Marina Viotti, represented the Revolution; and the never publicly confirmed Celine Dion — who, in the event, did close the show, with a powerful rendition of Edith Piaf’s “L’Hymne à l’amour,” sung from high upon the Eiffel Tower. Lady Gaga, whose presence in the city had been noted, opened it — if you don’t count the winged accordion player on what I assume was the Austerlitz bridge — with a glamorous cabaret production of Zizi Jeanmaire’s ‘60s hit “Mon truc en plumes” set on gilded steps leading down to the river. That translates as “my thing with feathers,” and there were feathers, indeed — big pink fans, pink being the hue associated with that leg of the color-coded program.

Jolly mixed filmed pieces into the live performance. Most provocatively there was a gender-bending love story told through book titles that wound toward a suggested threesome — the show contained a decent amount of queer content. There was a dance in the scaffolding around Notre Dame. More crucial to the narrative, such as it was, were segments surrounding a masked and hooded torch bearer who would also be glimpsed in person along (and zip-lining above) the route. This bit included trips through the Metro, the catacombs — undoubtedly this was the first and surely the last opening ceremony to feature human skulls — and alligator-inhabited sewers, as well as the Louis Vuitton atelier (where they made the trunks that held the torch on its travels) and the Louvre, where figures left their paintings, later to emerge as giant heads in the river.

Behind the clock in the Musée d’Orsay, we got a clip from the Lumière brothers’ seminal film of a train arriving in a station and a puppet animation that nodded to Georges Méliès‘ “A Trip to the Moon,” “The Little Prince” and “The Planet of the Apes,” which, of course, featured that statue the French made us. I did find this part particularly delightful.

This operatic mix of mediums, spread out across the city, could only make complete sense as television — anyone present would have only seen what was in front of them. And yet, as television, it mostly failed — further fragmenting a fragmented event, which alternated between the parade and the show over some four hours, with commentary and cutaways and, after the first hour, commercials. It spoke only of the banality of TV and to remind you that this is not an ad-free world. (The insertion of a “Despicable Me” short, from NBC’s parent company, Universal, had corporate cross-promotion written all over it.)

The Olympic rings lit above Celine Dion on the Eiffel Tower.

The commentary, by Mike Tirico, Kelly Clarkson and Peyton Manning, had the effect of people talking during a play, or that jarring feeling when you’re in a foreign country and you suddenly hear American voices. They were perhaps working at a disadvantage, given the secrecy that had surrounded the production and a less-than-native understanding of French culture and history. But apart from the sort of sports statistics that no viewer will keep in their head longer than it takes to say them, they spoke largely of how they felt and how they imagined the athletes must feel. It turned the parade of athletes into the Macy’s parade.

I say “mostly” failed. Often enough the grandeur, audacity and nuttiness of the event shone through the screen — mezzo-soprano Axelle Saint-Cirel singing “La Marseillaise” from the top of the Grand Palais, a silver chevalier on a robot horse skimming along the river to carry the Olympic flag to the Trocadéro, where the athletes had finally debarked, and where speeches from International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and Games President Tony Estanguet made one feel there might be something more to the Olympic spirit than winning medals.

And there was the genuinely moving finale, with Dion coming across like Liberty Leading the People in Delacroix’s famous painting and the Eiffel Tower putting on its laser show. White-clad athletes from many years passed the torch and became a crowd as they jogged together to the Louvre and back to the Tuileries, where a giant gold hot air balloon — the French invented it — was tethered. It became the Olympic cauldron, and then rose into the air, where I assume it will stay until the closing ceremony comes to tell us its story.