SCI-FI COMEDY “Everything Everywhere All At Once” won the top awards from the Screen Actors Guild last night, continuing its dominance of this year’s Hollywood award shows.

While several Irish actors had picked up nominations, the SAG awards didn’t bring them any wins.

“Everything Everywhere All At Once”, a film about a Chinese-American family undergoing a tax audit who end up fighting a universe-hopping supervillain, won best actress for Michelle Yeoh, best supporting actor for Ke Huy Quan, and best supporting actress for Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as the overall top prize of best cast in a motion picture.

The SAG prizes from the actors’ union round out a month in which “Everything Everywhere” has won best film from directors’ and producers’ groups too, making it firm favorite for the Oscars next month.

Voted on by more than 120,000 members of Hollywood’s acting union, the SAG awards are an important precursor for the Academy Awards, whose largest voting bloc is also actors. The Oscars will take place this year on 12 March.

Irish actors Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon had received nominations for their performances in The Banshees of Inisherin.

Farrell was nominated in the top acting category – outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role – after previously triumphing at the Golden Globes and earning a coveted Oscar nod in the equivalent categories.

Gleeson and Keoghan were both up for outstanding performance by a male actor in a supporting role, while Condon was nominated for outstanding performance by a female actor.

None will be returning to Ireland with a SAG award this year though as Brendan Fraser, who won best lead actor, was the only performer from a film other than “Everything Everywhere” to win a prize in the film categories.

Fraser, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the late 1990s and early 2000s with hits like “The Mummy,” endured a long fallow period before being cast in “The Whale.”

In the television sections, “The White Lotus” won the top drama prize and “Abbott Elementary” was named best comedy ensemble.

Winners from the mainly Asian cast of “Everything Everywhere” referred to Hollywood’s long struggle with diversity in their acceptance speeches.

“This isn’t just for me, this is for every little girl who looks like me,” said Yeoh.

Quan, who after appearing as a child in 1984′s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” took a long hiatus from acting because there “were so few opportunities,” noted he was the first Asian actor to win his category.

“When I heard this, I quickly realized that this moment no longer belongs to just me. It also belongs to everyone who has asked for change,” he said. 

© AFP 2023

Additional reporting by Press Association