SAG Awards shock with generic, surprising identify change: ‘A brand new chapter’

• The 2026 SAG Awards will now be identified by a brand new identify.
• SAG-AFTRA modified its social media handles to mirror the change on Friday.
• Demi Moore, Timothée Chalamet, and extra had been massive winners on the 2025 present.

The SAG Awards aren’t any extra, as Hollywood's largest union has introduced a surprising identify change forward of SAG-AFTRA's 2026 ceremony.

In a transfer billed as a "new chapter in our historical past" on the group's official X account, the Display screen Actors Guild Awards will now be referred to as The Actor Awards, per a video announcement on social media.

"Introducing The Actor Awards introduced by SAG-AFTRA," the group's message learn, with the account sharing a video highlighting previous ceremony attendees biking via previous ceremonies' opening statements, which generally see attendees within the viewers trying to digicam to state their identify, adopted by the topic including, "and I’m an actor."

The video touted the Netflix-hosted ceremony as "completely for actors." When reached for remark, a consultant for the present confirms by way of e-mail the identify change, and factors towards the group's up to date web site explaining the reasoning for the shift in identify.

"For the reason that present began over 30 years in the past, our iconic statuette has at all times been referred to as The Actor, and easily evolving the present’s identify to align with the award itself made apparent sense," the web site assertion reads. "We wished to offer clearer recognition by way of what the present is about for our home and international audiences — we honor actors in movie and tv. Laser-focusing the identify on these two issues grew to become the clearest and most simple path for this new chapter of the present."

Moreover, the positioning careworn that "we’re merely aligning the present’s title with the identify of the award itself and the union behind it."

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The positioning additionally signifies that there shall be no modifications to the submissions, nominations, and ultimate voting processes, and that "previous winners and audiences included will nonetheless confer with their award and the present because the SAG Awards" by mistake, "and that's okay. We all know it'll take time to regulate to the change."

Additional, SAG-AFTRA will proceed to current and manage the awards present, as they’ve for the final three many years.

Leisure Weekly has moreover reached out to Netflix for remark.

The Actor Awards are an vital stepping stone on any potential Oscar contender's path towards an performing nomination on the Academy Awards.

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With heavy crossover membership into the Academy's largest voting department, SAG-AFTRA members' votes usually decide winners on the Actor Awards that go on to win Oscars, together with final yr's Greatest Supporting Actor and Greatest Supporting Actress Oscar champions Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña.

Regardless of the robust crossover monitor file, each Greatest Actress (Mikey Madison) and Greatest Actor (Adrien Brody) Oscar winners didn't choose up earlier statuettes on the Actor Awards, with Demi Moore and Timothée Chalamet as an alternative scoring with SAG-AFTRA's voters.

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