It was a night of laughter and levity at the AARP Awards on Saturday night, but also an evening of reflection over collective and personal grief.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. − A sense of collective and personal grief was palpable at AARP’s Movies for Grownups Awards on Sunday night as actresses Sharon Stone, Laura Dern and Kathy Bates emotionally remembered their late mothers onstage.
While it was a night of mostly levity and laughter as actors George Clooney and Adam Sandler poked fun at aging, there were also moments of addressing the elephant in the room.
When introducing “Hamnet” as the winner of the Best Picture/Best Movie for Grownups on Jan. 10, Stone said, “In a room where we are all old enough to have loved and to have lost or to be losing, it hits with an impact that is indescribable and inexplicable,” the 67 year old said about the Chloé Zhao-directed film.
Stone, who lost her mother in March of 2025, was brought to tears, adding, “These losses do not just simply disappear; they move into us. They become a piece of us. They become a part of us.”
Ahead of the nearly three-hour awards show ceremony − which will be broadcast on Sunday, Feb. 22 − Stone stopped “Hamnet” star Jessie Buckley on the red carpet to chat for a few minutes. She held Buckley, and the two were brought to tears at one point.
While it wasn’t clear in the moment what Stone and Buckley were discussing, it became more evident when Stone took the stage to introduce Zhao, Buckley and costar Paul Mescal to the stage.
Laura Dern remembers late mother Diane Ladd
During Stone’s remarks, she also addressed Dern in the audience, who announced her mother, the great Diane Ladd, died in November. In her own acceptance speech, Dern, who took home the award for best actress for her role in “Is This Thing On?” spoke about her own personal grief but also how we’re “living in a time of utter heartbreak and dissolution.”
The 58-year-old actress also recalled that the “last time I was here, you were honoring my mother,” adding that “she loved you all” at AARP.
Chloé Zhao on grief and the making of ‘Hamnet’
Zhao, during her acceptance speech at the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards, said that making “Hamnet” reminded “us that grief is an inevitable art of life, and yet the more we can allow ourselves to feel the depths of our grief, the greater our capacity to love and to have compassion grow.”
“It’s a really beautiful paradox and incredibly, incredibly hard, as many of you know,” she said with Buckley and Mescal onstage next to her. “So when it’s really difficult to feel our grief, that’s when we reach out for poetry, and that’s when we reach out for part, and that’s when we reach out for storytelling, for each other and for community.”
Kathy Bates brought to tears onstage, says her mother is ‘the engine that drives my Matty’
The “Matlock” star, who was the award show’s oldest winner of the night at 77, was also brought to tears during her speech when she spoke of her late mother, Bertye Kathleen Bates.
Bates, who plays Madeline “Matty” Matlock in the CBS drama series, shared that her mother is “the engine that drives my Matty.”
“She wanted to be a lawyer, and she would have been a damn good one,” she said. “I wouldn’t be as confident as I am to stand before you tonight and accept this lovely award without her strength to move through a life she might not have chosen for herself, but dedicated to raising her three daughters who loved her deeply.”
The annual awards show, held at the Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, celebrated the best TV shows and films made by and for people over 50 in 2025. More winners of the night included George Clooney, Guillermo del Toro, Regina Hall and Noah Wyle.
The Movies For Grownups Awards will be broadcast by Great Performances on Sunday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m. on PBS.
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