Considered to be one of the most prestigious accolades in the film industry among a select others, the Screen Actors Guild Awards is a ceremony that happens every year to commemorate the finest that Hollywood has to offer. And as this premier event turns 30 with this year’s show, Jodie Foster remembers the time she became one of the first winners of this award all those years back.

Jodie Foster in a still from Silence of the Lambs

Back in 1995, when the Screen Actors Guild Association decided to introduce their own commemorations for the talented actors, filmmakers, and other essential members of the film industry, the actress had won the Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role category for her role in the film Nell. But unlike many of her peers, she didn’t attend the ceremony in person because she had no idea that the awards were even happening until she had won.

How Jodie Foster Won One Of The First SAG Awards But Had No Idea That She Did

Jodie Foster in a still from Nell
While the Screen Actors Guild Awards, popularly known as the SAG Awards, are among the most coveted in the industry by all industry professionals in the major motion picture side of things, they weren’t as big as they are now back in the day. In fact, the event was thought to flop in 1995 when it was first organized even by its committee members.

And for actress Jodie Foster, this event wasn’t even on her radar when she was nominated for one of the categories in their roster.

In a recent profile done on this auspicious annual award ceremony by Netflix’s Tudum, it was reported that the True Detective: Night Country star had no idea that she had been nominated for the Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role category. The reason was simply that the SAG Awards were not a popular topic of attention for the whole industry, which is why she wasn’t even properly informed of it in the first place.

She only came to know about it when she won the category for her performance in her Thriller/Drama film Nell. She said:

“I first heard about my win the next morning. I’d never heard of the nomination, so it was kind of a shock, as if someone had made a mistake. Nell was a performance that was life-changing for me personally but wasn’t necessarily a critics’ favorite. It meant a lot that fellow actors from my very own guild felt moved enough to honor me at [the] first ever event,”

She was so honored by this commemoration that she attended the event the very next year and acted as one of the presenters of the ceremony.

What Was Nell About?

A still from Nell
This film, according to Foster herself, was a life and career-changing film that she thought would never be recognized with such critical praise after its release. But in the end, Nell was truly something amazing.

The film follows the tale of a young girl named Nell, who lives isolated from the rest of the world with her mother in the mountain wilderness of North Carolina. After the death of her mother, she’s found by a caring and kind doctor named Jerome Lovell, who along with psychologist Dr. Paula Olsen, tries to introduce Nell to the endless possibilities of the world she never knew existed.