Jennifer Aniston holds back nerves ahead of presenting SAG to Barbra Streisand

The 30th ceremony is being held at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles.
AP
Ellie Iorizzo25 February 2024
The Weekender

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Jennifer Aniston said presenting a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award to musical star and actress Barbra Streisand is “making me want to vomit”.

Friends actress and life-time Streisand fan Aniston will present the SAG life achievement award to the 81-year-old during the ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles, which will be streamed live on Netflix.

The 30th ceremony comes on the heels of the longest strike in Sag-Aftra history and will honour Streisand – one of a handful of performers to have achieved EGOT status (winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award).

Aniston told People magazine on the grey carpet: “I’m excited, I’m nervous. Always nervous, but in fun, butterfly ways, to see all my friends and peers and some I don’t know and I just get to fan girl.”

After realising she was allowed to talk about presenting the award to Streisand, she said: “I didn’t know if that was a secret. That’s what is making me want to vomit. I don’t know how I’m going to get through.

“I wanted to have that voice, she was in my house since I can remember, I just heard that voice. There is nothing like her, there is no one who compares to her.

“She paved the way for a lot of us women, all of us actually… You want to maintain nerves because I think it just means you care.”

From Broadway to the big screen, Streisand is one of the biggest-selling recording artists of all time as well as an actress, writer and director known for Funny Girl, Yentl and A Star Is Born.

The SAG Awards serve as a key Academy Award indicator ahead of the ceremony next month.

Among the films nominated is Oppenheimer, which sees Irish star Cillian Murphy play J Robert Oppenheimer – the theoretical physicist described as the father of the atomic bomb.

Sir Kenneth Branagh, who plays physicist Niels Bohr in the biopic, said you have to “be ready” to perform when Christopher Nolan serves as director.

“I think in every film when it is done well, every moment matters and that is true of all of these nominees,” he said.

“Oppenheimer is my particular experience, Christopher Nolan felt that every moment and every performance mattered so to hundreds of actors, sometimes a very particular and, in terms of screen time, small amount of impact, but the difference it makes when you’re treated with respect by him when they bring their A game, it’s amazing.

“God is in the detail… I felt we were so lucky to be part of a big and generous ensemble.”

He continued: “It wasn’t just a script, it was quantum physics. When Christopher Nolan said you are playing a character who used to argue with (Albert) Einstein, then you go ‘oh boy, I am going to have a look at some thick books for this’ but he was such a guide to all of that.

“In a way, it puts actors in the driving seat, there is no smoke and mirrors in the cutting, it’s about actors being on point with the lines. With someone like Christopher Nolan you have to be ready, you can’t be anything other than ready at 7am in the morning he expects you to be ready and it is exciting to do it for him.”

The ceremony will feature a reunion of The Devil Wears Prada stars Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt – 18 years after the trio starred in the comedy drama.