The Actor Statuette: A Work of Art Celebrating Artistry
Standing 16 inches tall and weighing 12 pounds, The Actor® has been presented to outstanding performers in motion pictures and television since the first Actor Awards® in 1995.
Holding the masks of comedy and tragedy, the statuette represents the craft at the heart of the Awards: acting.
An Icon Since 1995
The Actor was sculpted by Edward Saenz and designed by Jim Heimann and Jim Barnett for the inaugural Awards in 1995.
More than three decades later, each statuette is still individually handcrafted at the American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank, California. Under the supervision of Brett Barney and Angel Meza, a team of craftspeople spends three to four months each year creating the statuettes presented at the Actor Awards.
More than 1,000 have been produced to date. The very first Actor statuette cast remains on display at SAG-AFTRA headquarters in Los Angeles.
Crafting The Actor
Creating each Actor statuette is a meticulous, hands-on process using the centuries-old lost-wax casting method.
It begins with a silicone mother mold used to create a wax version of The Actor. Because of the statuette’s distinctive pose, the arms are cast separately and carefully attached to the wax figure by hand.
Once perfected, the wax figure is encased in ceramic to create a mold strong enough to receive molten bronze. After the bronze cools and solidifies, the ceramic shell is broken away to reveal the newly cast statuette.
From there, foundry artists begin the detailed finishing process, including sandblasting, tooling, grinding, polishing, and metal chasing.
The Actor’s distinctive blue-green finish is created through chemical oxidation, with heat used to accelerate the natural patination of the bronze. The statuette is then mounted on its base, inspected for quality and stamped with its own unique serial number.
The result is a statuette made using the same process each year, but finished individually by hand. Each Actor is nearly identical, yet no two are exactly alike.
The Actor by the Numbers
- 16 inches tall
- 12 pounds when complete
- 4-inch base diameter
- 3–4 months of production each year
- 10 craftspeople involved in creating the annual collection
- 1,000+ statuettes produced since 1995
- One unique serial number stamped on every Actor
See How The Actor Is Made
Go inside the American Fine Arts Foundry in Burbank to see the artists and craftspeople behind The Actor, from the first wax figure to the final blue-green patina.
