Jon Brockett and Jen Coyne-Hoerle want to make something clear: They love Bridgerton. Everything about Bridgerton. The third season, Penelope, Colin, Lady Featherington, Lady Bridgerton, Lady Bridgerton’s boyfriend…the whole cast, really.
But they won’t lie: The day they found out that Bridgerton was nominated for the SAG Award for best ensemble, Coyne-Hoerle immediately called Brockett. “Bleeeeh!” she cried.
Brockett and Coyne-Hoerle are the executive producer and supervising producer, respectively, of the Screen Actors Guild Awards. They do lots of things in their roles: Brockett oversees all show operations; Coyne-Hoerle oversees ticketing. But the most important part? Crafting an enjoyable, watchable program. This boils down to three main factors: a) a great host and comedic bits b) good speeches by the winners, and c) the seating chart.
Yes, the seating chart. While the Academy Awards have the movie industry sitting in rows at the Dolby Theater, and the Emmys have half the television industry jammed into seats at the Peacock, the Screen Actors Guild has silver and small screen actors—just actors and their plus-ones—placed around 12-person tables at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall. During the live broadcast, cameras pan all around them, and the tiniest moments they capture can make the show: Jessica Chastain stumbling and being steadied by Courtney B. Vance, Pedro Pascal getting drunk at his table and admitting it on stage, Timothée Chalamet intensely (like, really intensely) studying the program and getting memed for it. By all accounts, the actors have a nice time. When Julia Louis-Dreyfus had to miss the SAG Awards in 2018 while undergoing chemotherapy, she reminisced about sitting with her Veep cast: “Miss being at the table with you all. How was the chicken?” she tweeted.
Along with the telecast’s director (Sandra Restrepo this year), Brockett and Coyne-Hoerle are two of the masterminds who make it possible. “What we try to do is just create a vibe, because ultimately, this is like a reunion on steroids,” says Brockett. After all, the SAG Awards are one of the few ceremonies that recognize complete ensembles.
Which brings us back to Bridgerton. There are 41 single-billed people on that show, and each gets a plus-one. That’s 82 hypothetical seats. “We’re thrilled for their nomination, but the sheer volume of them…” Brockett says, trailing off.
“Terrifying,” Coyne-Hoerle adds, finishing the thought. “It’s a puzzle.”
As we speak, they’re in the Screen Actors Guild’s Wilshire Boulevard office trying to figure it all out. A giant map of the Shrine Auditorium is projected on the wall, with most of the tables labeled by cast. There’s the Bridgerton crew, although only 21 of them RSVPed yes (so Brockett and Coyne-Hoerle only have to seat 42 people across four tables). Elsewhere are the actors from Abbot Elementary, A Complete Unknown, Wicked, Anora, and more. The seating for those tables is pretty straightforward: the people Wicked, for example, will sit with their castmates. Those nominated for individual awards, like Ariana Grande (for best supporting actress) and Cynthia Erivo (for best lead actress), will sit in the seats closest to the aisles. This makes it easier for them to get up to the stage—as well for the cameras to reach them.
That doesn’t mean that Coyne-Hoerle can’t take some creative liberties, however. For one thing, she sat Grande and Bowen Yang at separate tables, but back to back. “I like the idea of Bowen Yang seeing Cynthia and Ariana right behind him,” she says. (Also in their eyeline? Jane Fonda, who receives SAG’s Life Achievement Award on Sunday.) And while Selena Gomez will be with her Emilia Pérez cast, Coyne-Hoerle put the group from Only Murders in the Building—the Hulu series in which Gomez also stars—at the table right next to them. Maybe she’ll have a moment with Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Meryl Streep?
Still, Coyne-Hoerle admits, “Because we’re seating casts together, that’s kind of easy. There’s a natural chemistry at those tables.” A much more fun challenge? The tables labeled “individuals.”
There are a lot of free agents at the SAG Awards. Presenters like Louis-Dreyfus, Keke Palmer, and Lily Gladstone; along with nominees whose movies didn’t get an ensemble nomination, like The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody. Amid a sea of Bridgerton starlets, where do you put Adrien Brody?
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That’s where the research comes in. Brockett and Coyne-Hoerle’s team scours the internet, running names through IMDB’s advance collaborations search engine; watching YouTube videos to see if one actor has ever mentioned admiring another in an interview; sorting through old photographs to see if they’ve ever hung out at a party. But often, it just comes down to a gut feeling: “It s almost instinctual,” Brockett says.
The SAG seating chart won’t be finalized until the day of the ceremony, on February 23. I visited their office on the afternoon of February 13, so what I saw may not make it to the show. But I saw a lot, like one individual table that I’ll call “Pretty Little Netflix Things,” which included Noah Centineo, Joey King, and Millie Bobby Brown. Another I’ll call “Surprise Shows That Everyone Binged This Year, Plus Keke Palmer,” with Nobody Wants This star Adam Brody, Baby Reindeer’s Richard Gad and Jessica Gunning, and…Keke Palmer. “On the face of it, you’re like, what?’” says Coyne-Hoerle. “But that table, it’s going to be so fun.”
She did agonize a little over its arrangement, however. Coyne-Hoerle’s original vision was a “Brody” table, centered around Adam Brody and Adrien Brody. Yet the more she thought about it, the more she felt like there was no better place to put Adrien Brody than next to…Jeremy Strong. “Adrien Brody and Jeremy Strong…two of the actor-iest actors out there!” she says. The pair, who also memorably shared some screentime on Season 3 of Succession, will sit with presenters (and former co-stars on The X-Files) Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny.
Colin Farrell occupies a particularly important seat. Every year, the SAG Awards seat a different dashing gentleman (my words, not theirs) on the aisle right by the stage. While they’re not told explicitly to do so, said gentlemen usually take it upon themselves to help older actors or young ingenues wearing heavy designer ballgowns up onto the stage. And they just think Farrell has that “knight in shining armor” energy. “I think he would definitely be a gentleman who would be willing to help people at the stage,” says Coyne-Hoerle.
In 2023, that part was played by Austin Butler, who took the arm of both Jennifer Coolidge and Sally Field. It was fodder for two picture-perfect (and, indeed, camera-ready) moments. “It was natural. Every lady that passed by him, he was right up there doing his thing,” says Coyne-Hoerle.
Butler’s table in 2023, which also included Zendaya, Paul Mescal, and Andrew Garfield, was one of Coyne-Hoerle’s very favorites to put together. “It was just the party table—gorgeous, young Hollywood people,” she says. “I feel like all the shots from the night, I was like, That was it.” Some other standouts? When she sat Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie with Tilda Swinton in 2012. Or Matt Damon and Ben Affleck with Mindy Kaling. Brockett and Coyne-Hoerle had a lightbulb moment, remembering Kaling once wrote a one-woman show called Matt Ben about the two actors. “It was a deep cut,” Brockett admits. But it paid off: Kaling ended up tweeting about it.
Some other canny pairings for this year? Daniel Craig and Andrew Scott—presently working together on the next Knives Out—will sit with Lily Gladstone. Then Farrell will be next to Kathy Bates—an idea they had after Farrell asked where Bates was while accepting a Critics Choice Award this year. “He had this moment in his speech where he was like, ‘Where’s Kathy Bates?’ Oh, I’m going to find you.’ I was like, ‘Well, what if she’s just with him at this table?’” Coyne-Hoerle says.
Brockett and Coyne-Hoerle use a lot of terms to describe the process of seating the SAGs, likening it to a puzzle, a chessboard, and so on. But the one they return to most? “It’s like a dinner party,” Coyne-Hoerle says.
See every look from the 2025 SAG Awards red carpet here:
