'Conclave,' Chalamet Win at SAG Awards, Setting up Oscars Battle 

Timothee Chalamet poses in the press room with the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for "A Complete Unknown" during the 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. (AP)
Timothee Chalamet poses in the press room with the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for "A Complete Unknown" during the 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. (AP)
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'Conclave,' Chalamet Win at SAG Awards, Setting up Oscars Battle 

Timothee Chalamet poses in the press room with the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for "A Complete Unknown" during the 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. (AP)
Timothee Chalamet poses in the press room with the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for "A Complete Unknown" during the 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. (AP)

Papal thriller "Conclave" claimed the top prize on Sunday at Hollywood's Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Timothee Chalamet's portrayal of Bob Dylan made him the surprise best actor winner, at the last major honors ahead of next weekend's Oscars.

The "Conclave" cast of Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini won best movie ensemble at the SAG Awards, a red-carpet ceremony that streamed live on Netflix. The film tells the story of the secret maneuvering at the Vatican during the selection of a fictional pope.

Fiennes spoke on behalf of the cast about the need for supportive communities, in filmmaking and in life, as he accepted the SAG trophy on stage in downtown Los Angeles.

"We do recognize the supreme importance of (community) in our work and in the world," Fiennes said. "That's what we're celebrating tonight."

"Conclave" was feted as the real-life pope, 88-year-old Pope Francis, remained in critical condition with double pneumonia. Italian actress Rossellini wished him well during and after the ceremony.

"We are very, very worried for our pope," she told reporters after the SAG event. "We love this pope."

The "Conclave" win signaled the movie could take the prestigious best picture trophy at the Academy Awards on March 2. Members of the SAG-AFTRA actors union pick the SAG winners, and actors form the largest voting body for the Oscars.

But the race for best picture at the Oscars is unusually murky this year.

While "Conclave" also captured the top prize at the Britain's BAFTA awards, the big trophies from Hollywood producers and directors went to "Anora."

Chalamet scored the SAG award for best movie actor for playing a young Dylan as he arrives in New York to try to make it in music in "A Complete Unknown."

The outcome was an upset over Adrien Brody, who landed several acting trophies earlier in the season for playing an immigrant and architect in "The Brutalist."

The 29-year-old Chalamet said he "poured everything I had" into his portrayal of Dylan.

"The truth is, I'm really in pursuit of greatness," Chalamet said. "I want to be one of the greats."

Demi Moore was honored as best movie actress for her role as a fading celebrity seeking a fountain of youth in "The Substance."

The actress recalled getting her SAG union card in 1978 at age 15. "It changed my life because it gave me meaning, it gave me purpose and it gave me direction," she said. "I was a kid on my own who had no blueprint for life."

The supporting movie actor and actress trophies went to Kieran Culkin for "A Real Pain" and Zoe Saldana for "Emilia Perez."

In television honors, the cast of FX's "Shogun," a tale of political machinations in imperial Japan, was named best ensemble in a drama. "Only Murders in the Building" won best ensemble in a comedy series for stars including Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin.

"Wait, we never win. This is so weird," a surprised Gomez said. "Marty and Steve aren't here because, you know, they don't really care," she added, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Actor and activist Jane Fonda was honored with a life achievement award and talked about the empathy that actors draw upon in their performances.

"Empathy is not weak or woke," she said, "and by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people."



Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito Revisit ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ for Its 50th Anniversary

Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
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Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito Revisit ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ for Its 50th Anniversary

Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)
Michael Douglas, left, and Danny DeVito appear at the 5th Annual Reel Stories, Real Lives Benefit on April 7, 2016, in Los Angeles. (AP)

Jack Nicholson did not want to go to the Oscars. It was 1976 and he was nominated for best actor in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The Miloš Forman film, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a nationwide theatrical re-release on July 13 and July 16, had become a bit of a sensation — the second highest grossing picture of 1975, behind “Jaws,” and had received nine Oscar nominations.

But Nicholson wasn’t feeling optimistic. In five years, he’d already been nominated five times. He’d also lost five times. And he told his producer, Michael Douglas, that he couldn’t go through it again.

“I remember how hard I had to persuade Jack to come to the ceremony. He was so reluctant, but we got him there,” Douglas said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “And then of course we lost the first four awards. Jack was sitting right in front of me and sort of leaned back and said ’Oh, Mikey D, Mikey D, I told you, man.’ I just said, ‘Hang in there.’”

Douglas, of course, was right. “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” would go on to sweep the “big five” — screenplay, director, actor, actress and picture — the first film to do so in 41 years, (“It Happened One Night,” in 1934) which only “The Silence of the Lambs” has done since. That night was one of many vindicating moments for a film that no one wanted to make or distribute that has quite literally stood the test of time.

“This is my first 50th anniversary,” Douglas said. “It’s the first movie I ever produced. To have a movie that’s so lasting, that people get a lot out of, it’s a wonderful feeling. It’s bringing back a lot of great memories.”

The film adaption of Ken Kesey’s countercultural novel was a defining moment for Douglas, a son of Hollywood who was stuck in television and got a lifeline to film when his father, Kirk Douglas, gave him the rights to the book, and many of the then-unknown cast like Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd.

DeVito was actually the first person officially cast. Douglas, who’d known him for nearly 10 years, brought Forman to see him play Martini on stage.

“Miloš said, ‘Yes! Danny! Perfect! Cast!’” Douglas said in his best Czech accent. “It was a big moment for Danny. But I always knew how talented he was.”

A Joyful Shoot

Though the film's themes are challenging, unlike many of its New Hollywood contemporaries it wasn’t a tortured shoot by any stretch. They had their annoyances (like Forman refusing to show the cast dailies) and more serious trials (they found out halfway through production that William Redfield was dying of leukemia), but for the most part it was fun.

“We were very serious about the work, because Miloš was very serious. And we had the material, Kesey’s work, and the reverence for that. We were not frivolous about it. But we did have a ball doing it,” DeVito said, laughing.

Part of that is because they filmed on location at a real state hospital in Salem, Oregon. Everyone stayed in the same motel and would board the same bus in the morning to get to set. It would have been hard not to bond and even harder if they hadn’t.

“There was full commitment,” Douglas said. “That comes when you don’t go home at night to your own lives. We stopped for lunch on the first day and I saw Jack kind of push his tray away and go outside to get some air. I said, ‘Jack, you OK?’ He said, ’Who are these guys? Nobody breaks character! It’s lunch time and they’re all acting the same way!'”

Not disproving Nicholson’s point, DeVito remembers he and the cast even asked if they could just sleep in the hospital.

“They wouldn’t let us,” DeVito said. “The floor above us had some seriously disturbed people who had committed murder.”

A lasting legacy

The film will be in theaters again on July 13 and July 16 from Fathom Entertainment. It’s a new 4K restoration from the Academy Film Archive and Teatro Della Pace Films with an introduction by Leonard Maltin.

“It’s a gorgeous print and reminds me how good the sound was,” Douglas said.

DeVito thinks it, “holds up in a really big way, because Miloš really was paying attention to all great things in the screenplay and the story originally.”

Besides the shock of “holy Toledo, am I that old?” DeVito said that it was a treasure to be part of — and he continues to see his old friends, including Douglas, Lloyd and, of course, Nicholson, who played the protagonist, R.P. McMurphy.

One person Douglas thinks hasn’t gotten the proper attention for his contributions to “Cuckoo’s Nest” is producer Saul Zaentz, who died in 2014. His music company, Fantasy Records who had Creedence Clearwater Revival, funded the endeavor which started at a $1.6 million budget and ballooned to $4 million by the end. He was a gambler, Douglas said, and it paid off.

And whatever sour grapes might have existed between Douglas and his father, who played R.P. McMurphy on Broadway and dreamt of doing so on film, were perhaps over-exaggerated. It was ultimately important for their relationship.

“McMurphy is as good a part as any actor is going to get, and I’m now far enough in my career to understand maybe you have four, maybe five good parts, really great parts. I’m sure for dad that was one of them,” Douglas said.

“To not be able to see it through was probably disappointing on one side. On the other, the fact that his son did it and the picture turned out so good? Thank God the picture turned out. It would have been a disaster if it hadn’t.”

Douglas added: “It was a fairy tale from beginning to end. I doubt anything else really came close to it. Even my Oscar for best actor years later didn’t really surpass that moment very early in my career.”