Jessica Gunning Says Kathy Bates and Jodie Foster Were Among Stars on Her 'Vision Board' as She Beats Them for 2025 SAG Award

Mar. 15, 2025

Jessica Gunning accepts her SAG Award.Photo:Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty

“When I first started acting, I had an office job alongside acting for about eight years,” she said, adding that she had a “geeky” tendency of creating vision boards of the people she wanted to meet and act alongside one day.

Ed Miller/Netflix

Gunning said of her fellow nominees, “Cate BlanchettandJodie FosterandKathy Bateswere on that vision board, and so to be listed amongst them today, but also alongside Lily [Gladstone] andCristin [Milioti], who gave performances that absolutely knocked my socks off, really means more to me than I can ever express.”

Gunning won her first Emmy in September 2024 and in January, her first Golden Globe for the role.

Kathy BatesinThe Great Lillian Hall,Cate BlanchettinDisclaimer,Jodie FosterinTrue Detective: Night Country,Lily Gladstone inUnder the BridgeandCristin MiliotiinThe Penguinwere also nominated for the coveted award.

Kathy Bates.HBO

HBO

During a panel in July, Bates — who already has two SAG awards under her belt — opened up about her early days of acting, saying she didn’t think she was cut out for the industry at first: “When I was younger, I guess I would get my feelings really hurt,” she said, perEntertainment Weekly. “Sometimes I’d get on a plane and fly home.”

She began acting in theater in the 1970s before taking on film and television roles, and she recalled being told she needed to toughen up.

Blanchett, 55, was nominated for her starring role inDisclaimeras Catherine Ravenscroft, an investigative journalist who built her career on exposing others’ secrets. When she receives an anonymous manuscript for a book exposing her secrets, her life is upended.

She told theLos Angeles Timesin November that her biggest hope was that viewers took in all that the show had to offer.

“Well, the most satisfying thing I’ve heard is the fact that you watched it a second time,” Blanchett said. “I can’t tell you the joy and relief that brings me. Because often with episodic storytelling, people either want to binge-watch it, or they’re time-poor, or watch it with two or three other things on board. And there’s so many almost imperceptible details that Alfonso has woven in — and encouraged us to weave into our performances — that hopefully it is rewarding to watch a second time.”

Jodie Foster.Michele K. Short/HBO

Michele K. Short/HBO

Foster, 62, is up for an award for her role as Liz Danvers inTrue Detective: Night Countryon HBO. Playing a police chief who is tasked with solving the disappearance of eight men in Alaska, Foster has previously described the character as “kind of awful” and “damaged” in an interview onToday.

Night Countrywas the most-watched of the four seasons ofTrue Detectiveand got renewed for a fifth season in February 2024.Later that year, in September 2024, the actresswon her first ever Emmyfor the part, calling the win “an incredibly emotional moment.”

“They just told us their stories and they allowed us to listen, and that was just a blessing,” she said of the Inupiaq and Inuit people of Northern Alaska. “It was love, love, love and when you feel that, something amazing happens. It’s deep and wonderful and it’s older than this place in this time. That’s just the message, which is love and work equals art.”

Lily Gladstone.Bettina Strauss/Hulu

Bettina Strauss/Hulu

Gladstone, 38, was nominated for her starring role inUnder the Bridge,playing a police officer named Cam Bentland who is investigating the murder of a young girl in canada. The series is based on on author Rebecca Godfrey’s book of the same name andis based on“the 1997 true story of fourteen-year-old Reena Virk (Vritika Gupta) who went to join friends at a party and never returned home,” per the official synopsis.

“I feel like this piece really drew me in because it was another opportunity to have a longer examination of, why do we sensationalize crimes like this and continue to dehumanize the victim?” she explained of why she took the part inan April 2024 interview with PEOPLE.

In 2024, Gladstonemade historywhen she became the first Indigenous American to win a SAG award, which was for best female actor for her role inKillers of the Flower Moon.

Cristin Milioti.Macall Polay/HBO

Macall Polay/HBO

Milioti, 39, starred as Sofia Falcone, the daughter of a famed criminal, in HBO’sThe Penguin.She took home a Golden Globe in January for the part, where she revealed that a “gut alarm was firing on all cylinders” when she first read the show’s script.

“I was like, ‘I need to play this. I love this character so much.’ And I’m so lucky that it worked out,” she said. “And so to see what it’s done and to see the amount of people it’s reached, it’s just been… Yeah, it’s been incredible.”

She added that she “would love it” if she was asked to reprise the role for another season.

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SeePEOPLE’s full coverage of the 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, airing on Netflix.

source: people.com