Robert De Niro is set to receive the Screen Actors Guild’s Life Achievement Award at the upcoming 26th annual SAG Awards.
“The Irishman” star is the 56th recipient of the award. In recent years, SAG-AFTRA has given it to Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Ernest Borgnine, Carol Burnett and last year’s winner, Alan Alda.
The 26th annual awards will air on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2020.
The SAG Life Achievement Award is given annually to an actor who represents the “finest ideals of the acting profession.” De Niro is the winner of two Oscars, a Golden Globe and the Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award, a Silver Berlin Bear, a Kennedy Center Honor and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
“Robert De Niro is an actor of extraordinary depth and ability. The characters he creates captivate our imaginations. From the smoldering inferno of young Vito Corleone to the raging bull Jake Lamotta and everybody’s grandpa Ben Whittaker, he continues to touch our hearts and open our minds to new and exciting worlds of understanding and emotion,” Gabrielle Carteris, president of SAG-AFTRA, said in a statement. “It is my great privilege to announce that SAG-AFTRA’s highest honor will be presented to one of the most singular talents of our generation, Robert De Niro.”
“I have been a member of this union for over 50 years. It’s an honor to receive this award from SAG-AFTRA,” De Niro said in a statement.
This year, De Niro is in the thick of the awards season as the star of Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” where he stars opposite Al Pacino and Joe Pesci in a gangster drama about the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. De Niro also starred in “Joker” opposite Joaquin Phoenix, another film that’s earning awards buzz and is inspired by De Niro’s own work in classics like “Taxi Driver” and “The King of Comedy.”