'Stranger Things' Wins Actors' Group Award

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People on social media are talking about the 2017 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards show. The event took place Sunday night in Los Angeles, California.

Five young actors were as surprised as the crowd when they heard their show, "Stranger Things," had won the award for best drama series.

The young actors are from 12 to 15 years old. They jumped for joy as they got out of their seats to accept the award.

The show "Stranger Things" is set in 1983. It tells about the disappearance of a young boy in a small Indiana town. His friends try to find him with the help of the boy's mother, played by Winona Ryder, and the local police chief, played by David Harbour.

Accepting the award for the cast, Harbour said that actors can "change the world … and through our art … battle against fear, self-centeredness and exclusivity ... to cultivate a more empathetic and understanding society."

During his speech, many people saw Ryder giving a number of facial expressions.

Another group of less-known actors won the award for best cast in a motion picture. The movie "Hidden Figures" tells the story of three African-American women who were mathematicians. They helped the American space agency send a man to the moon. The film’s cast includes Mahershala Ali, who also won an award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a supporting role for "Moonlight."

​Denzel Washington won the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for "Fences." The well-known actor had never before received a SAG award.

The online service Netflix had a big night at the awards ceremony. Netflix won four awards. Among them was “Orange Is the New Black,” which won for best group of actors in a comedy series for the third time in three years. The series' lead actor, Taylor Schilling, spoke about the diversity of the cast.

“We stand up here representing a diverse group of people, representing generations of families who have sought a better life here from places like Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ireland ... and we know that it's going to be up to us and all of you, probably, to keep telling stories that show what unites us is stronger than the forces that seek to divide us.”

The next award ceremony for the movie industry will be the Academy Awards, which takes place on February 27.

One nominee is Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose film "The Salesman" is nominated for best foreign language film. Farhadi says he will not attend the ceremony. He is protesting the new U.S. travel ban on Iran and six other countries.

I’m Jill Robbins.

Dr. Jill Robbins wrote this story for Learning English based on an Associated Press story by Lynn Elber and other sources. George Grow was the editor.