Molly Shannon will serve as honorary chair at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards, as well as join a star-studded lineup of award presenters. The honorary chair position is given each year to an individual who exemplifies outstanding artistic achievement and embodies Film Independent’s mission.
The honorary chair and presenters will reveal the award recipients at the beach in Santa Monica on Saturday, February 22. The Spirit Awards, this year celebrating its 40th anniversary, is Film Independent’s largest annual celebration, making year-round programming for filmmakers and film-loving audiences possible, while amplifying the voices of independent storytellers and celebrating their diversity, originality and uniqueness of vision.
An actress and comedian of stage, television and film, Shannon spent six seasons as a cast member of Saturday Night Live, for which she earned an Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program.” Recently on television she has also appeared in Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, Max’s The Other Two, Max’s The White Lotus and Showtime’s I Love that For You, for which she was nominated for a 2023 Film Independent Spirit Award for “Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series.” On screen she has been seen in Zach Braff’s A Good Person, opposite Carey Mulligan in the Academy Award-winning Promising Young Woman and in the highly acclaimed drama Other People, for which she won a 2017 Spirit Award for “Best Supporting Actress.”
Past honorary chairs include Javier Bardem, Angela Bassett, Halle Berry, Jessica Chastain, Robert Duvall, Ava DuVernay, Jodie Foster, Lily Gladstone, Siân Heder, Samuel L. Jackson, Nicole Kidman, Ang Lee, Julianne Moore, David Oyelowo, Martin Scorsese, Kerry Washington and Chloé Zhao.
Joining Molly Shannon presenting the awards will be a lineup headlined by Tadanobu Asano, Carrie Coon, Danielle Deadwyler, Mark & Jay Duplass, Walton Goggins, Kathryn Hahn, Alana Haim, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Patti LuPone, Melanie Lynskey, Natasha Lyonne, Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ruth Negga, Karen Pittman, Questlove, Edgar Ramirez, Hunter Schafer, Randy & Jason Sklar, Julio Torres, Jessica Williams and Michelle Yeoh, with more to be announced before the show.
