Barbra Streisand was presented with the lifetime achievement honor at the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards. It’s an appropriate year for such a victory lap, with Streisand’s memoir, My Name Is Barbra—and its 48-hour audiobook running time—being such a cultural moment. And with Barbie’s box office dominance and Greta Gerwig’s Oscars snub for Best Director in the zeitgeist, Streisand’s role as a trailblazer for female directors and her history of being overlooked by the Academy is at top of mind.
Given the significance behind honoring Streisand at this time when her legacy is such a major part of the discourse, there was only one appropriate reaction to her appearance at Saturday’s ceremony: crying.
Jennifer Aniston and Bradley Cooper may have presented Streisand with her trophy, delivering passionate tributes. But it was Anne Hathaway who stole the show, because she represented all of us in that moment. She was practically sobbing at the mere sight of Streisand going to accept her award.
Social media lit up in response to Hathaway’s tears. The consensus: Girl, we get it.
Wearing a beret and tinted glasses, Streisand said in her speech, “This is such a wonderful award to get, because you know in advance you’re gonna get it, and you don’t have to sit there and squirm.”
“I wanted to be in the movies, even though I knew I didn’t look like the other women on the screen,” she said. “My mother said, ‘you better learn to type.’”
Streisand is an EGOT winner (she’s won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony), but she has never won a SAG Award. Like a teary-eyed Hathaway, she seemed very moved by the honor.
“Somebody once said to me, asked me, if I was happy,” she said. “And I said, ‘Are you kidding? I’d be miserable if I was happy,’” she told the crowd, all of whom were looking at her with unequivocal adoration and joy. “And I’d like to thank all the members of the Academy for making me really miserable. Thank you.”
