"Wicked" and "A Complete Unknown" are hits with SAG
Wednesday, January 8, 2025 at 2:30PM
Cláudio Alves in A Complete Unknown, Anora, Conclave, Emilia Perez, Jonathan Bailey, Kathy Bates, Oscars (24), Punditry, SAG, The Last Showgirl, Wicked, precursors

by Cláudio Alves

The Screen Actors Guild couldn't resist Jonathan Bailey in WICKED. Could you?

The "guilds week" continues with SAG revealing their nominations and shaking up the Oscar race. Wicked is today's biggest champion, scoring in five categories, including a surprise Best Supporting Actor nomination for Jonathan Bailey. A Complete Unknown also got a major boost, as did The Last Showgirl, while The Brutalist and Sing Sing underperformed. The Screen Actors Guild has a more populist taste than almost any of the major awards-giving organizations, including AMPAS, so expect some discrepancies between these and the Oscar lineups. Still, when it comes to winning, it's difficult, though not impossible, to take home Hollywood's most coveted trophy without a SAG nod to match.

Find the complete nomination lists for both film and TV after the jump…

 

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN 

ANORA

CONCLAVE

EMILIA PÉREZ 

WICKED

While not wholly unexpected, these results still portent doom for the campaigns of some of the season's top contenders. How will Sing Sing – a film about acting as a healing mechanism, an art, and a salvation – perform with the Academy if the Screen Actors Guild is so resistant to it? The Brutalist's Best Picture hopes also crumble under the weight of this absence. In my mind, Wicked and Emilia Pérez have come to the forefront as the frontrunners while everyone else is trying to catch up.

Nathaniel will probably write about the actors left out of these cast lists, but one needn't go deep to notice some glaring examples. Emilia Pérez being exclusively represented by its Cannes-winning quartet looks silly, but Conclave getting in without Carlos Diehz is patently absurd. I also can't help but wish that some of Anora's supporting ladies had made it. Justice for Darya Ekamasova!

 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

This feels like the end of the road for Angelina Jolie and maybe Nicole Kidman. Strangely enough, such results don't particularly hurt the surging Fernanda Torres and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, whose films were never the kind SAG tends to embrace. They are the most mainstream of all major precursors, generally allergic to non-English-speaking cinema and auteur-driven projects that fall on the austere side of things. Such Oscar nominees as Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall, Cruz in Parallel Mothers, Aparicio in Roma, Negga in Loving, Huppert in Elle, Rampling in 45 Years, Cotillard in Two Days One Night were ignored by the guild. Moreover, SAG voting closed on January 5th, meaning Torres' Golden Globe win and speech had no effect on their decision. The same can't be said for the Oscar nominations, whose voting window opens today in the middle of a PR onslaught by Sony Pictures Classics, which seems fixated on getting the Brazilian leading lady her flowers.

Even so, this nomination should be a great honor for Anderson, whose personal narrative is bound to strike SAG voters hard. The same could be said for The Last Showgirl in general. I struggle to see the film score as well with AMPAS, partly because Demi Moore is the current frontrunner with a very similar career trajectory behind her.

 

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

The Best Actor SAG is Chalamet's to lose unless Fiennes pulls off a surprise win on the way to the Oscars. Once again, it's worth remembering that Sebastian Stan's Golden Globe win came after the SAG nominations had closed so that victory's impact on the race is still impossible to assess. But of course, Craig just made the case for his viability as a contender, even with a group whose taste feels as incompatible as possible with Queer's fantasia of desperate desire, sweat, tears, and ayahuasca.

 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role 

Is Jamie Lee Curtis about to snag herself an afterglow nomination? It's possible, especially considering she also made the BAFTA longlist. Jones and Rossellini falter, even though the latter's film got an ensemble nomination. That could spell trouble for those stanning the Italian femininomenon. It's nice to know Deadwyler is still in the race, even though she was shut out by BAFTA and the Globes alike. Finally, as Barbaro rises as a potential contender, one thing remains true about this race – Grande and Saldaña are locks while everything else is a mystery.

 

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role 

For as cringe-y as the internet might find him, Jeremy Strong is beloved within the acting community. And yet, it's notable that he got into Supporting Actor while Stan was left outside the leading men's race. No matter what, Strong will lose to another leading man in the form of his Succession baby brother. Bailey is the big shocker here as far as inclusions are concerned. Snub-wise, this is a disastrous portent for Denzel Washington's chances. For context, since SAG started handing out awards, the actor has never scored an Oscar nomination without before being embraced by his guild. Edward Norton easily jumps ahead of him in predictions, and it might be time to consider leaving Washington out altogether.

 

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture 

Furiosa not being here invalidates the entire category in my eyes. Well, SAG watched Gladiator II, making Washington's absence all the more puzzling. As for Wicked, it's got to be the frontrunner to win the ensemble prize if it even made this list. Based on what, by the way? Not the dance, since that doesn't count for this race. Maybe Cynthia Erivo's airborne antics in "Defying Gravity" and that levitating stunt at school. Is that enough to justify its nomination?

 

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series

Get ready for another Shogun sweep, as the show is bound to win these three races. The only chance something goes differently is Best Actress, where Kathy Bates's popularity might put her slightly ahead of Anna Sawai. Even the Japanese actress is a fan, judging by her Golden Globe speech.

In other news, Jonathan Bailey gets his third SAG nomination of the year as part of the Bridgerton cast. Multiple nominees are all the rage with this guild, of course, and it'd be even more of a trend if they added supporting categories to the TV races. As it stands, it's odd to see Allison Janney's two-episode guest appearance on The Diplomat's second season competing with a bunch of leading ladies, including Keri Russell from the same show. But going back to double-dippers, do you know who deserved to be one? Jack Lowden who acts circles around Gary Oldman in Slow Horses.

 

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series

I remain convinced Colón-Zayas won the Emmy last summer because voters believed they were awarding her for the third season of The Bear. Her showcase episode, "Napkins," is a perfect character study in miniature that allows the actress to deepen a characterization that's been pushed to the margins during most of the show's run. Honestly, if I were a SAG voter, I'd be hard-pressed not to pick her even though, truth be told, little of what she does could be considered comedy acting. Then again, categorization arguments about The Bear are a tired subject so let's move on.

Some other oddities involve Short making it but not Martin, whose character was much more emphasized in this season of Only Murders in the Building. It's also a pity that no new show scored an ensemble nomination. A Man on the Inside would be my pick, with its cast full of elderly thespians who deliver phenomenal work. Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sally Truthers, John Getz, Susan Rutten, Veronica Cartwright, and Margaret Avery are all awards-worthy.

 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series 

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series

Some of these miniseries picks are cuckoo bananas. Bardem over Koch? Bates over Lange??? And then there's the fact there must have been a tie in the voting since Best Actress has one extra nominee. If that's what made Lily Gladstone's possible, I can't complain. She's marvelous in Under the Bridge. That said, Archie Panjabi's even better, and it's been terribly sad to see her ignored all season long.

 

How do you think the SAG nominations will impact the Oscar race? Is Jolie out for good?

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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