SAG Awards: A great night for Darren Criss and Sandra Oh

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Darren Criss accepts The Actor statuette at the SAG awards.

By winning the Screen Actors Guild statuette Sunday (Jan. 27), Darren Criss completed a  sweep of this year's major acting awards.

Criss won the Best Actor in A Limited Series offered by SAG, the union of his acting peers, Sunday (Jan. 27).

"I find it appropriate that this statuette is sort of choosing between which masks to use, and the character that I played, Andrew Cunanan, unfortunately, used masks to destroy things,” the Filipino American actor said in his acceptance speech. “So as an actor, my goal is to hopefully create something positive, to use masks to create a positive change." 

With the statue of The Actor in his possession, Criss becomes the first Filipino American to win any of the acting honors that includes the 2018 Emmy, Golden Globe, and Critics’ Choice Award for his groundbreaking performance as serial killer Andrew Cunanan in American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace. Best known for his light-hearted ole in Glee, Criss took full advantage of playing against type to portray the dark, deranged psychopath who killed five people before taking his own life.

"So for all of the friends and families that are still affected by the destruction that he wrought, I hope that they know our goal was not to make a spectacle of their tragedy, but to create a positive dialogue about social issues and bring to justice things that were in the shadows.”

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Sandra Oh thanks the actors who gave her words of eencouragement.

Sandra Oh was awarded The Actor for her role in Killing Eve in the Best Actress in A Drama Series, repeating the honors she received at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice. This was her fourth SAG win and sixth nomination.

She made a point in thanking three African American actors for their words of encouragement during her career.

“I want to thank Alfre Woodard,” Oh said in her acceptance speech. “In 1997 -she’s never going to remember this, she whispers in my ear – I’m so proud of you up there. We fight the same fight.’ Jamie Foxx in 2006 pulled me aside and said, ‘Keep going.’ And in 2017, Lena Waithe, she just embraced me and said, ‘You already won. It’s in the work’ So thank you to my fellow actors. Thank you so much.”

Backstage, Oh was asked to opine on diversity in Hollywood. “Are we there yet? Of course not. But it’s always good to have something to aspire to and move towards, for us to see ourselves is a deeply human need and I’m here to do my best to fulfill that.”

The actors of Crazy Rich Asians was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, a prize that went to Black Panther, another film that like CRA disproved Hollywood's belief that films with nonwhite themes and casts could not be successful.

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Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Jeong and Constance Wu introduced a clip from 'Crazy Rich Asians.'

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