The 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards streams live on Netflix on Sunday Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT, and when you see your favorite actors pick up their 2025 awards, you might not be thinking much about the statue itself. After decades of award shows — and their corresponding acceptance speeches — the motion of hoisting up some newly bestowed hardware just comes with the territory. But, after witnessing the actual creation of the actor statue, Ginny & Georgia star Antonia Gentry told Tudum she’d never take that for granted again. 

“I’m obsessed with it now. It felt like I was watching The Lord of the Rings’ One Ring being forged,” Gentry told Tudum back in 2023 when she was the year’s SAG Awards ambassador and took a trip to Burbank’s American Fine Arts Foundry to watch the creation of the bronze statues. 

“They’re really heavy. I’m going to aspire to get as many of those as I can just to start a workout routine,” Gentry said. “Just seeing someone make one statue really makes you appreciate just how special and handcrafted it is.” 

In fact, the people behind the statue say it’s more a “real piece of artwork” than your basic mantelpiece fodder. 

John Salangsang/SAG Awards/Shutterstock

“It actually follows the process that was invented many, many years ago,” says Angel Meza, who manages the foundry. The process involves two types of molds (wax and ceramic), molten bronze, welding tools, chemical patina finishing and countless expert hands. Therefore, no two are identical. All together, it takes about four weeks to make a single statue; Meza’s team will craft 50 little bronze men for the 2023 SAG Awards alone.  

“[The process] follows all of the steps to be considered a piece of fine art; [the statue] is not like a trophy that just gets polished,” he continues. 

For SAG Awards Committee member and telecast producer Elizabeth McLaughlin, the teamwork of statue making lends itself to a much bigger SAG metaphor. “What actors do is a collaborative art. It takes so many people, places and things to fall perfectly into place… the actor statue is the same thing. I never made that connection until today,” she says, still stunned by the magic of molten bronze. 

“We should all aspire to that kind of glow.”

You can take in all the majesty of the statues — and the A-listers holding them — live on Netflix on Sunday Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT.