SAG Awards 2025 highlights: Kristen Bell’s new ‘Frozen’-inspired song, Jane Fonda’s fiery speech and reunions galore

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards provided one last trial run for Oscar hopefuls.

At the Feb. 23 SAG Awards, held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and hosted by Kristen Bell, Conclave, Demi Moore (The Substance), Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown), Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez) and Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) were the big winners in film. It was the final push for them all leading into the big show — the Academy Awards — on March 2.

TV actors were also recognized at the event. Shōgun (Best Drama Ensemble) and Only Murders In The Building (Best Comedy Ensemble) took the top show honors. Among the solo winners were Colin Farrell (The Penguin) and Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer) for Best Actor/Actress in a Limited Series, Martin Short (Only Murders in the Building) and Jean Smart (Hacks) for Best Actor/Actress in a Comedy Series and Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai (Shōgun) for Best Actor/Actress in a Drama.

During the star-studded event, actress and activist Jane Fonda was honored with the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award, delivering a powerful and fiery speech — as she is known to do — while collecting her statue.

Here are the highlights from the evening, from Bell’s Frozen spoof to Fonda’s fighting words.

Kristen Bell channeled her Frozen character Anna in the opening

The Nobody Wants This star’s opening monologue included a heartwarming new rendition of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” called “Do You Want to be an Actor?” In it, she name-checked many of the nominees — Moore, Jodie Foster, Saldaña, Culkin and Jeff Goldblum — and attendees in their early roles, along with fun throwback photos and footage.

Jane Fonda delivered a rousing politically-charged speech

The 87-year-old Grace and Frankie star received accolades for her long-running career and made it clear that she’s not done.

She talked about her “weird” career path, retiring for several years before coming back at age 65, and deemed herself a “late bloomer.” While talking about the community of Hollywood and the power of unions, she referenced the current political administration, saying, “We are in our documentary moment. This is it. And it’s not a rehearsal.”

Fonda talked about the term “woke,” saying it “just means you give a damn about other people.” She added that, “A whole lot of people are going to be really hurt by what is happening, by what’s coming our way ... We are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what’s coming at us.”

Harrison Ford took a not-so sneaky snack break

The Shrinking actor crashed his co-star Jessica Williams’s TV moment as she told her SAG story. As the actress spoke, Ford was seen in the background putting a potato chip in his mouth and then pulling it out. Williams quipped during the funny moment, “I told him to turn away!”

Chalamet had a winning date night with mom

The actor has been sneaking girlfriend Kylie Jenner into awards shows all season, but had a different plus-one: his mother, Nicole Flender. Flender turned out to be his lucky charm as he won his first SAG Award and made history as the youngest actor to ever win the SAG Award for lead actor.

However, the internet has been largely divided on his speech, in which he declared that he wants “to be one of the greats” like Marlon Brando, Daniel Day, Lewis, Viola Davis, Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps and said that he’s “in pursuit of greatness.”

Kieran Culkin went off-script — again

Culkin, who was also with his mother, hasn’t prepared his speeches this season which have been filled with comical off-the-cuff remarks. The A Real Pain actor talked about the weight of the award as the speech clock time run down — and randomly called out Adrien Brody.

Holding his award Culkin said, “I don’t think there’s any way anyone can hold this for 45 seconds … which is the allotted time, Adrien Brody. 45 seconds.” As the camera was trained on a confused but good humored Brody, Culkin added, “There was no reason to take that shot. I love you. Take your time.” After the show, Culkin said he hoped his playful joke about Brody, who didn’t win, “didn’t come off as mean… I should implement a filter.”

Selena Gomez was stunned as she accepted the SAG for Only Murders ensemble

With Martin Short (a first-time SAG winner at 74) and Steve Martin missing the ceremony, Gomez did the talking for the show and was visibly stunned as she took the stage. “Wait, we never win,” she said, declaring it all “so weird.”

It was a night of reunions

The SAG Awards are apparently a great place for reunions. In 2020, we saw Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s long-awaited one. This year, there were a bunch of fun ones on camera.

Bell reunited with Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester for a bit. She also shared moments with her The Good Place co-stars Ted Danson and William Jackson Harper and Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Jason Segel. Other reunions included The X-Files’s Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny and New Girl’s Zooey Deschanel and Max Greenfield.

The SAG Awards are streaming on Netflix. The Academy Awards will air Sunday, March 2 at 7:00 p.m. ET on ABC.