Better Than Gold

Los Angeles, California - The Actor® statuettes, which this year's 12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® honorees will receive on Sunday, Jan. 29, 2006 for outstanding performances in 2005 in five film and eight primetime television categories, have been cast in solid bronze at the American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank, California. The 2006 SAG Awards™ ceremony will be simulcast live nationally on TNT and TBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT, 7 p.m. CT and 6 p.m. MT from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center. Each statuette carries a serial number engraved at its base. Numbering began with No. 1. The first statuette cast is on display at Screen Actors Guild headquarters in Los Angeles, and 401 statuettes have been awarded since the first Actors® were presented in 1995. The Actor® weighs 12 pounds and stands 16 inches tall. Each Actor® is cast in solid bronze, using the lost wax process. The statuette has a green-black patina and stands on a base of polished black granite. The Actor® is the work of a team of fine arts professionals. The Actor® was sculpted by Edward Saenz and designed by Jim Heimann and Jim Barrett. The statuette is cast at the American Fine Arts Foundry under the supervision of Brett Barney. Screen Actors Guild will not know how many of The Actor® statuettes it will need until the awards presenters open the envelopes on Jan. 29. Ballots for the 12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® were mailed on Jan. 6 to the entire active membership of Screen Actors Guild, who will vote on all categories. Ballots will be returned by Jan. 27 directly to Integrity Voting Systems, the guild's official teller, where results will be sealed until the SAG Awards™ ceremony. Though the number of categories and special awards is known ahead of time, the possibility of multiple recipients sharing awards in the Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Motion Picture, Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series and Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series categories makes the total number of statuettes that will be awarded unpredictable. Any surplus of The Actor® will find a home in the guild's vault until next year. Five 10-foot, 200-pound likenesses of The Actor® statuette, that were introduced at the 9th and 10th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®, will grace the red carpet, the stage, the media rooms and post-Awards gala at the 12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®. Scenario Design in Los Angeles constructed the painted fiberglass statues under the supervision of Scenario Design President Paul Buckley and Scenic and Sculpting Department Head Daniel Lucas.