*If you were watching the Screen Actors Guild/SAG Awards Saturday night, you saw something Oscars viewers won’t be seeing; Actors of color giving acceptance speeches. It was a serious contrast to #OscarsSoWhite.
One of the actors of color who won last, Idris Elba, picked up two awards. One for TV (“Luther”) for the BBC and one for Film (“Beasts of No Nation”) for Netflix.
It’s interesting to note that Elba being passed over for an Oscar nomination helped ignite this year’s backlash against the Oscars organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which for the second year in a row did not nominate any people of color for its 20 acting nominations.
When Elba won his award for the TV crime drama “Luther,” he deftly summed up the tone of the evening onstage with this play on words: “Welcome to diverse TV.”
In addition to Elba, other black winners included Queen Latifah who played blues singer Bessie Smith in HBO’s “Bessie,” Viola Davis for her lead turn on ABC’s “How to Get Away With Murder” and “Orange Is the New Black” actress Uzo Aduba.
“And they won because their performances were effective,” Davis told the LA Times backstage. “They won because the actors have craft, they have a level of excellence that reaches people — and we’re actors too. We’re artists, too, we deserve to be a part of it and I think you saw that tonight.”
“You know what it feels like?” Aduba added. “It’s amazing to see actors have the opportunity to celebrate other actors’ work and to feel empowered by the voting process so they can see whatever actor they want reflected up there. And I’m honored to have been chosen by my peers.”
h/t: LA Times
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