The winners of this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG) have been revealed – a major predictor of the Oscars, with just a week to go.

Demi Moore continued her run of success to be named best actress for her performance in body horror The Substance, while Timothee Chalamet picked up the award for best actor for his portrayal of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown.

While not a complete shock, before this Adrien Brody had probably just nudged it as favourite for an Oscar win for his performance in post-war epic The Brutalist.

Now, the race is closer than it has been in years – and both Chalamet, 29, and Moore, 62, could be on course for their first Academy Awards.

Following a BAFTA win earlier this month, papal thriller Conclave was honoured with the top film prize, for best ensemble.

Starring Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini and Stanley Tucci, the film follows the drama of the selection process for a new pope.

During the ceremony, Rossellini said the film’s cast wanted to send their best wishes to Pope Francis, who is being treated in hospital for pneumonia and bronchitis, and wish him “a quick recovery”.

Elsewhere, the supporting categories were true to 2025 awards season form – Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldana continued their runs of success with wins for performances in A Real Pain and Emilia Perez respectively.

‘I want to be one of the greats’

The awards are voted for by members of the SAG-AFTRA union and are held as a celebration of actors honoured by their peers.

For the best male actor announcement, Chalamet looked visibly surprised as his name was called.

After being accompanied by girlfriend Kylie Jenner to the BAFTAs last week, this time round he was celebrating with his mum, Nicole Flender.

“The truth is, this was five-and-a-half years of my life. I poured everything I had into playing this incomparable artist, Mr. Bob Dylan, a true American hero,” he said on stage. “It was the honour of a lifetime playing him.”

Making no secret of his ambitions, he added: “The truth is I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats.”

Moore said joining SAG-AFTRA as a teenager in 1978 gave her meaning as “a kid on my own who had no blueprint for life”.

Actress and activist Jane Fonda, 87, provided the ceremony’s most passionate political moment as she was honoured with a lifetime achievement prize.

“We are in our documentary moment,” she said. “This is it. And it’s not a rehearsal.”

The word “woke”, she added, “just means you give a damn” about others.

The TV winners

The SAG Awards also include TV categories, with Japanese historical drama Shogun picking up the gong for best ensemble and its stars, Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai, named best actor and actress.

Only Murders In The Building took home the prize for best comedy ensemble, with star Martin Short named best actor in a comedy series.

Jean Smart, who had previously called for cancelling the awards shows due to the wildfires that hit LA in January, was named best actress in a comedy, for her role in Hacks. She did not attend, but gave a recorded introduction.

In the limited series category, British star Jessica Gunning was named best actress for Baby Reindeer, while Irish star Colin Farrell was named best actor for The Penguin.

Louis Theroux will be honoured with the prestigious National Film and Television School (NFTS) fellowship next month.

The renowned interviewer – who has been working in the business for over three decades, and whose Weird Weekends were the stuff of legend – admits he initially felt like “a trespasser” and “imposter” in his front-of-screen role.

Never going to film school himself, the now world-famous presenter and documentarian got his first job as a print journalist in America after graduating from Oxford University.

His big break came on Michael Moore’s TV Nation series, as a roving reporter delving into offbeat culture, later striking up a deal with the BBC resulting in Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends.

A first-person storyteller, who disarms his subjects with charm, Theroux’s interviews frequently result in the unexpected.

Commenting on his upcoming award, Theroux said: “I came into the industry more than thirty years ago, feeling like a trespasser, an imposter, in a role meant for someone else, worrying that I would be found out, hoping I could keep going for a few more months, since I was enjoying it so much.

“All these years later, I’ve learned that ‘keeping going’ may be the best definition of success.”

Admitting that like those just starting out in the field, he too is “still figuring things out”, he said he hoped the fellowship would give him the chance to “connect with younger people… sharing the few things I’ve learned, and more importantly learning from them”.

Theroux went on to interview a host of celebrities in When Louis Met…, including Jimmy Savile, who is now known to have been one of the UK’s most prolific sexual predators.

Haunted by the interaction, Theroux would go on to interview some of Savile’s victims in a follow-up 16 years later.

Theroux has also fronted various documentaries across BBC1 and BBC2 and released the 2016 feature-length documentary My Scientology Movie.

The author of several books, he currently hosts his own podcast series.

In 2019, he set up his own production company, Mindhouse, with his wife Nancy Strang and filmmaker Arron Fellows, producing documentary film and TV series, as well as his podcast.

Theroux recently revealed he was suffering from alopecia, initially resulting in the loss of his eyebrows.

In true Theroux style, the 54-year-old has been documenting his hair loss journey on social media, seeking advice and sharing updates with his followers.

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NFTS chair Sophie Turner Laing praised Theroux’s “immense contribution” to the world of factual filmmaking, adding: “His ability to connect with audiences and uncover powerful human stories makes him a true icon in the industry.”

Previous recipients of the honorary fellowship include James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, Wallace And Gromit creator Nick Park, director Sam Mendes and children’s author Malorie Blackman.

NFTS graduates have gone on to win 15 Oscars and 166 BAFTAs since the school opened half a century ago, with current graduates’ work on show at the BFI Southbank from Monday 3 March to Thursday 6 March.

The fellowship will be awarded to Theroux during the school’s graduation ceremony on Friday 7 March.

Actor and comedian Chris O’Dowd has described moving back to London from the US, finding people in the city are “down” after a decade of cutbacks.

The IT Crowd star returned to London from Los Angeles with his wife Dawn O’Porter and their two children a year ago.

“It’s just gone through 10 years of austerity, and you can feel it off it,” he told Sky News.

“People are down, is the impression I’m getting. I don’t know if it’s because of the divisive political culture or whether it’s because people are broke as s**t because they haven’t put any money into public services for so long, and now they’ve said they’re not going to do it either because they’re not going to raise taxes, so I don’t know what they’re going to do. But everybody is… it would be hard to say it’s improved.”

Asked if he sensed any optimism that things would change for the better, he replied: “Not yet.”

O’Dowd said the decision to return to the UK “wasn’t because Trump got in or any of that crap”, but that he wanted to “get out before the political cycle starts, because it just gets a bit heated”. He added: “It actually didn’t this time, because he won so easily.”

The Irish star was speaking ahead of the premiere of his new Sky Original series Small Town, Big Story, which comes to Sky and NOW on Thursday 27 February.

Set in the fictional Irish border village of Drumban, the dramatic comedy follows Wendy Patterson, portrayed by Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks, a local girl who found success as a TV producer in Los Angeles. She returns with a film crew in tow and is forced to confront a secret from decades ago – visitors from outer space.

So does the show’s creator believe in alien existence?

“I find it hard to believe we’re it, we’re just too imperfect,” O’Dowd replied. He hails from Boyle, County Roscommon, which is considered a “UFO hotspot” in Ireland.

“In the vastness of the universe, or the multiverse or whatever we’re existing within, it seems highly unlikely that you and me are the best we can do, no offence,” he added.

Patterson’s show-within-a-show, titled I Am Celt but described as Lame Of Thrones, appears to satirise Hollywood’s often inaccurate portrayal of Ireland.

“Some of them can be heavy-handed, or a little bit off-piste,” laughs O’Dowd. “I think the thing to remember is we’re guilty of it too.

“Whenever I hear Americans being depicted from Irish people, very often they’re stuffing themselves with cheeseburgers and they’re morons. There’s got to be a bit of give and take with that.”