The SAG Awards are getting a new name.
SAG-AFTRA has announced that the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards will be renamed to The Actor Awards presented by SAG-AFTRA. This change will come into effect starting with the 32nd edition of the awards ceremony in 2026.
According to the guild, which announced the name change on Friday, this decision was made in order to align the show’s name with the physical statuette itself, which is known as The Actor.
“Evolving the show’s name to align with the award itself made obvious sense,” SAG-AFTRA said in a FAQ section on its website. “We wanted to provide clearer recognition in terms of what the show is about for our domestic and global audiences – we honor actors in film and television. Laser-focusing the name on those two things became the clearest and most straightforward path for this new chapter of the show.”
The guild also said that as the awards ceremony has expanded its global audience due to streaming on Netflix, the timing felt right to make the name change so as to “step confidently into the show’s next era.”
Actor Award nominations will be announced on Jan. 7, 2026. Because campaigning began before the announcement of the name change, the guild acknowledged that For Your Consideration campaigns can continue to refer to the ceremony as the SAG Awards for the time being. However, SAG-AFTRA has asked studios, networks and platforms to switch to the new name after the nominations are announced.
“We understand there will be a period of transition where people – past winners and audiences included – will still refer to their award and the show as the SAG Awards, and that’s OK,” the guild said in its FAQ. “We know it’ll take time to adjust to the change.”
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