Kristen Bell Performs & Shouts Out First Responders During SAG Awards Monologue: “There Is No Way To Properly Express Our Gratitude”

Ryan Fleming

Mon, February 24, 2025 at 2:23 AM UTC

2 min read

Kristen Bell hosted the SAG Awards on Netflix, opening with a pre-recorded sketch featuring Jean Smart and a surprise appearance by Harrison Ford.
Bell paid tribute to LA firefighters during her monologue and sang a parody song highlighting nominees' first acting roles.
The show included introductions by Mikey Madison, Bowen Yang, Jessica Williams, and Jodie Foster, as well as a compilation of nominees' early acting moments.

As the returning host of Sunday night’s SAG Awards on Netflix, Kristen Bell certainly knows her audience. “Everyone started out as a kid in somewhere Earth, going to bed and waking up every morning thinking, ‘It’s going to be me,’” says Bell. “So yes, Justin Timberlake owes us all a piece of that song.”

It wasn’t Bell speaking when the program began however, as the show opened with a pre-recorded Hacks sketch of Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) reading her monologue to her pitch team, before her agent Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) comes and lets her know she isn’t actually going to host. The skit ends as Deborah receives the serum from The Substance , which came just in time for her hosting gig.

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Mikey Madison, Bowen Yang, Jessica Williams and Jodie Foster followed up with “I’m an Actor” introductions before Bell took the stage, along with a surprise appearance from Harrison Ford who wouldn’t stop eating behind Williams as she spoke. “I told him to turn away!” shouted Williams as Ford turned his chair around to continue eating.

When Bell began her monologue, it was no surprise that one of the first things she did was mention the first responders to the recent LA wildfires. “The city and the people in it have been put through the ringer, and though this room is full of sparkles and glamor and also what the kids are calling ‘rizz’, the most attractive tables I need to point out are right over there,” she says as she gestures to the LA firefighters seated in the audience.

“There is no way to properly express our gratitude to all of you. Words won’t do it. Invitations to these events won’t do it,” she says. “And as a diagnosed people pleaser, I’m really going to need to know what will do it because the not knowing is very, very hard for me.”

And for the surprise she alluded to on the carpet earlier, Bell began singing “Do You Want to Be an Actor?”, to the tune of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?”, as she brought up images of nominees first acting roles. The compilation included scenes of Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween , Selena Gomez on Barney & Friends and a young Jodie Foster in a Coppertone commercial, before ending with a clip of Bell herself.

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