Coda takes top prize, Squid Game makes history with two acting wins

LOS ANGELES • Coda, a heartfelt indie drama about a struggling deaf family, won the top prize at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards on Sunday, boosting its hopes as a potential dark horse for this month's Oscars.

Meanwhile, Netflix's record-breaking drama Squid Game continued to make history by becoming the first non-English-language series to win acting prizes at the SAG awards.

Coda, taking its title from an acronym for "child of deaf adult", follows high school teen Ruby as she juggles her musical ambitions with her family's dependence on her to communicate with the "hearing" world.

"We deaf actors have come a long way," signed a visibly shocked Marlee Matlin, a deaf former Oscar winner who plays Ruby's mother, as she and her co-stars accepted the statuette for best cast in a motion picture. "This validates the fact that we deaf actors can work just like anybody else."

The win at the SAG awards, voted for by Hollywood's acting union, is an important precursor to the Academy Awards, whose largest voting bloc is also actors.

Coda, released by Apple TV+ after a bidding war at last year's Sundance independent film festival where it fetched a record US$25 million (S$34 million), also won best supporting actor for Troy Kotsur, who plays Ruby's father.

Will Smith won best actor for King Richard, which recounts the improbable rise of Serena and Venus Williams from the rough streets of Compton to tennis superstardom. Smith plays their father Richard, whom he praised for "a power of belief that borders on insanity and sometimes tips over the border - which is absolutely necessary to take something from impossible to possible".

Jessica Chastain won best actress for The Eyes Of Tammy Faye, in which she disappears beneath layers of the eccentric American televangelist's trademark heavy make-up.

Ariana DeBose bolstered her Oscar front-runner status by claiming best supporting actress for her role as Anita in director Steven Spielberg's West Side Story remake.

Presumed Oscars best picture front-runners The Power Of The Dog and Belfast both left the SAG gala empty-handed, blowing wide open the race to the Academy Awards on March 27.

In the television categories, Squid Game actors Lee Jung-jae and Jung Ho-yeon looked visibly shocked to win best actor and actress in a drama. Both South Koreans spoke through a translator before Jung, who plays a North Korean defector, switched into English, thanking the Hollywood group for "open(ing) the door for me". Lee plays a laid-off worker and obsessive gambler.

Squid Game also won outstanding action performance by a stunt ensemble in a comedy or drama series.

The SAG awards - which took place online last year due to Covid-19 - returned to an in-person event on Sunday in Santa Monica, just outside Los Angeles.

English actress Helen Mirren was honoured with SAG's lifetime achievement award, chalking her Oscar-winning career up to a mantra of "be on time and don't be an a**".

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE