Black Panther Wins SAG Award For Outstanding Cast, Chadwick Boseman Gives Acceptance Speech

Black Panther took home a surprise win at last night’s SAG Awards, winning the ceremony’s top prize for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The film won the cast award, which is the Screen Actor’s Guild’s closest equivalent to a “Best Picture”-style award, beating out the likes of A Star Is Born, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Crazy Rich Asians.

Since the SAG Awards are dedicated to acting performances, there is no true Best Picture award. However, given that SAG Members make up a significant portion of the Academy, there is reason to believe that the MCU film’s chances of winning Best Picture at the Oscars have been bolstered. It is still a dark horse at best though, with fellow Oscar nominees Roma, BlacKKKlansman, Green Book, and The Favourite considered the frontrunners.

As Uproxx notes, Chadwick Boseman accepted the award on behalf of the cast and discussed the film’s impact on the industry.

“We all know what it’s like to be told that there is not a place for you to be featured, yet you are young, gifted, and black,” Boseman said. “We know what it’s like to be told there’s not a screen for you to be featured on, a stage for to be featured on … And that is what we went to work with everyday … we knew not that we would be around during award season or that it would make a billion dollars, but we knew that we had something special that we wanted to give the world.”