Screen Actors Guild Awards cancel live nominations due to LA wildfires

The Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG) nominations have cancelled an in-person announcement planned for today due to devastating wildfires and winds in the Los Angeles area.

The nominations for awards honouring the best performances in movies and television will be announced by press release instead of at a live event hosted by actors Joey King and Cooper Koch.

The SAG Awards are a reliable Oscar bellwether for the Acting and Best Picture categories.

Strong winds that sent wildfires ripping through the mountains and foothills around Los Angeles on Tuesday fed a spectacle of smoke, flames and flight.

The seaside enclave of Pacific Palisades, which has long been a celebrity hideaway and magnet for those drawn to nature’s doorstep not far from the skyline of downtown Los Angeles, was also hit.

Actor James Woods was among those who posted video of flames burning, on a hill near his home. “Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short clip on the social platform X. Actor Steve Guttenberg, who also lives in Pacific Palisades, urged people who abandoned their cars to leave their keys behind so they could be moved to make way for fire trucks. “This is not a parking lot,” Guttenberg told KTLA.

The fires have led to the cancellation of several entertainment events, including today’s premiere of the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man, a premiere of Jennifer Lopez’s Unstoppable movie and the premiere of Universal Pictures’ upcoming horror film Wolf Man.

Kristen Bell will host the 31st SAG ceremony, which will stream live on Netflix on 23 February from the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles.