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In light of recent events, celebrating the gilded thoroughfare of the 23rd Annual SAG Awards red carpet at the Shine Theatre in Los Angeles would seem as tone deaf as Ivanka Trump’s well-timed hot take on tin foil as evening-wear.
However, here we all are. It’s a reality that hasn’t gone unnoticed by those attending the awards, many of whom have used the platform to speak out against President Trump’s ban on immigration from those predominantly Muslim countries where he doesn’t have vested business interests.
Sarah Paulson, who won the SAG Award for Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries, used her time at the podium to urge everyone to donate to the ACLU “to protect the rights and liberties of people across this country”. Likewise, Julia Louis Dreyfus used her moment collecting the award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series to remind everyone that she is both the “the daughter of an immigrant” whose “father fled religious persecution in Nazi occupied France” and an “American patriot” who is horrified by the “blemish” of the ban.
But it was Mahershala Ali, whose work in Moonlight earned him the SAG Award for Male Actor in a Supporting Role, who delivered what is perhaps the evening’s most poignant speech thus far. He said:
“What I learned from working on Moonlight is that we see what happens when you persecute people. They fold into themselves— and what I was so grateful about in having the opportunity to play Juan was playing a gentleman who saw a young man folding into himself as the result of the persecution of his community, and taking the opportunity to tell him that he mattered, that he was ok, and to accept him, and I hope that we do a better job at that.
“We kind of get caught up at the minutiae, and the details that make us all different. I think that there’s two ways of seeing that; there’s an opportunity to see the texture of that person and the characteristics that make them unique. And then there’s the opportunity to go to war about it, and say ‘that that person is different from me and I don’t like that, so let’s battle.’
“My mother is an ordained minister, I’m a Muslim; she didn’t do backflips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago. But I’ll tell you now, we put things to the side, I was able to see her, she was able to see me. We love each other, the love is real, and that stuff in minutiae, it’s not that important.”
I digress. Below, a selection of the minutiae from the 2017 SAG Awards Red Carpet.
Salma Hayek in Gucci
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Teresa Palmer
Credit: John Shearer/Getty Images for People Magazine
Natalie Portman in Dior Couture
Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Emma Stone in Alexander McQueen
Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Amy Adams in Brandon Maxwell
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Nicole Kidman in Gucci
Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Kerry Washington
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Chrissy Teigen
Credit: John Shearer/Getty Images for People Magazine
Claire Foy in Valentino
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Emily Blunt in Roberto Cavalli Couture
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Michelle Williams in Louis Vuitton
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Thandie Newton in Schiaparelli Couture
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Kate Hudson in Dior
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Janelle Monae in Chanel
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Meryl Streep in Valentino
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Kirsten Dunst in Dior
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Brie Larson in Jason Wu
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Taraji P. Henson in Reem Acra
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Evan Rachel Wood in Altuzarra
Credit: Lester Cohen/WireImage
Tile and cover image: John Shearer/Getty Images for People Magazine