Chadwick Boseman And Sandra Oh Deliver Powerful Speeches At SAG Awards

Last night, the SAG Awards belonged to Black Panther. Sure, there were wins for Bohemian Rhapsody, The Wife and even a surprising victory for A Quiet Place. But the Marvel movie filled with an incredible cast, which includes Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, and Angela Bassett, took home the award for Best Ensemble. Their win got a standing ovation. And Boseman’s acceptance speech was a thing of beauty, quoting the Nina Simone song, “To Be Young Gifted and Black,” written by Weldon Irvine.

Check it out.

.@theblackpanther takes home the Actor® for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture! #sagawards 🎭

Great and moving speech from @chadwickboseman 💪 pic.twitter.com/Nw2UGbs712

— TNT Drama (@tntdrama) January 28, 2019

Boseman said the cast was asked throughout the film’s promotion would Black Panther change the industry? “And my answer to that,” he said, “Is: ‘To be young, gifted, and black.’”

He continued, “We know what it’s like to be told there’s not a screen for you to be featured on, a stage for you to be featured on. We know what it’s like to be the tail, but not the head. We know what it’s like to be beneath, but not above. And that is what we went to work with every day. Because we knew not that we would be around during awards season or that it would make a billion dollars, but we knew that we had something special that we wanted to give the world — that we could be full human beings in the roles that we were playing. That we could create a world that exemplified a world that we wanted to see.”

Accepting her award for Killing Eve, Sandra Oh also used her speech to speak to the power of representation and community, citing Alfre Woodard, Jamie Foxx and Lena Waithe as inspirations.

.@IamSandraOh takes home the Actor® for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series! #sagawards 🎭 pic.twitter.com/1EuPosDcuf

— TNT Drama (@tntdrama) January 28, 2019

Here’s the full list of nominees and winners. Victors are in bold.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role:
Christian Bale, Vice
Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
John David Washington, BlacKkKlansman

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role:
Emily Blunt, Mary Poppins Returns
Glenn Close, The Wife
Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?