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Barbra Streisand was the woman of the hour at the 2024 SAG Awards, as she accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jennifer Aniston and Bradley Cooper were on hand to present the award, with Streisand receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.
Her emotional speech even made stars like Anne Hathaway and Emma Stone teary-eyed as they listened from the audience.
Streisand joked, “This is such a wonderful award to get because you know in advance that you’re going to get it and you don’t have to sit there and squirm.”
She continued, “Thank you SAG-AFTRA. I’m very proud to be a member for over 60 years. I can’t quite believe it.”
Opening up about her decision to pursue acting, she shared, “That make-believe world was much more pleasant than anything I was experiencing. I didn’t like reality. I wanted to be in the movies, even though I knew I didn’t look like any of the other women on the screen. My mother said, ‘You better learn to type,’ but I didn’t listen. And somehow, someway — thank you, God — it all came true.”
She reflected, “It’s really a privilege to be part of this profession. For a couple of hours, people consider the theater to escape their own troubles. What an idea! Moving pictures on a screen. And I can’t help but think back to the people who built this industry. Ironically, they were also escaping their own troubles.”
The 81-year-old also noted film industry titans like Samuel Goldwyn and the Warner Brothers who had changed their Jewish names because of discrimination.
“They were all fleeing the prejudice they faced in eastern Europe, simply because of their religion,” she said. “And they were dreamers to like all of us here tonight. And now I dream of a world where such prejudice is a thing of the past.”