LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Latest on Saturday’s 22nd annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles (all times local):
12:20 p.m.
Although the SAG Awards are best known for their film honors, half of the winners announced Saturday night will be for acting performances on the small screen.
In the top two TV categories, best ensemble in a drama will be decided between “Downton Abbey,” ”Game of Thrones,” ”Homeland,” ”House of Cards” and “Mad Men.” The comedy side pits “The Big Bang Theory,” ”Modern Family,” ”Key & Peele,” ”Orange Is the New Black,” ”Transparent” and “Veep.”
In addition, the great TV comedian Carol Burnett will accept the SAG lifetime achievement award from presenters Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.
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11:45 a.m.
Hollywood beset by a crisis over diversity is convening for the 22nd annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, where the top film honor may be a toss-up between the ensembles of two fact-based tales: “The Big Short” and “Spotlight.”
The awards – to be broadcast live from the Shrine Auditorium on TNT and TBS at 8 p.m. Eastern – come amid an uproar over a second straight year of all-white Academy Awards acting nominees. The issue has spawned cries for an Oscar boycott and precipitated membership changes for the academy.
This year’s SAG nominees, however, aren’t as homogenous as the Oscars. Among the five nominees for best film ensemble are the N.W.A biopic “Straight Outta Compton” and the child soldier drama “Beasts of No Nation,” whose star Idris Elba is also nominated.