SAG Nominations

by Nathaniel R

It was a surprising morning at the SAG nominations with Bombshell coming in hot with 4 nominations (!!!) and Parasite becoming only the second foreign language film ever nominated for Oustanding Cast. In other news we saw the first chink in Netflix's considerable Oscar-seeking armor today as The Irishman and Marriage Story both arguably underperformed and Dolemite was shut out. (And, as always, we've investigated the "Cast" nominations to see who was left out.)

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role:

Christian Bale (“Ford v Ferrari”)

Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)

Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”)

Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”)

Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”)

In a surprising state of affairs -- though not as surprising if you remember that SAG nominations often skew “earlier” buzz than what’s happening in December, Taron Egerton, Leo DiCaprio, and Christian Bale are all accounted for rather than later openings like Robert DeNiro, Adam Sandler. Netflix push Eddie Murphy also failed to win them over...

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SAG Predictions from a SAG Nominating Committee Member!

[Secret Guest Post]

Awkwafina announcing the nominees last season. I think she'll be nominated this year.Hello again to readers of The Film Experience!  I previously shared a few reactions from our SAG nominating committee screenings including The Farewell and The Irishman and Bombshell and Little Women. The following are my predictions for tomorrow, NOT who I nominated (I nominated only 8 of these 30 predictions.)

LEAD ACTOR
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
Robert De Niro, The Irishman
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes

LEAD ACTRESS
Akwafina, The Farewell
Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Lupita Nyong’o, Us
Renee Zellweger, Judy

I’m skeptical about Ronan, Theron and Woodard in Best Actress since their screeners came relatively late...

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Kathy Bates going lead for Richard Jewell!

Shortly after updating the Best Supporting Actress chart and placing Kathy Bates in the mix for Richard Jewell, one of our SAG Nominating Committee friends sent us this image.  SURPRISE. Kathy Bates is campaigning as a lead at SAG.

Longtime awards obsessives will already know this but for newbies to the intricacies of awards season you should know that SAG voters do not have a choice where they place actors. They can only vote on them in the categories for which they've officially been submitted by the studios (same with Emmy voters). Occassionally SAG and Oscar campaign tactics are different, studios changed their mind, or errors are made by administrative types so people nominated in lead at SAG occassionally go on to win supporting acting Oscars (Benicio del Toro in Traffic / Jennifer Connelly in A Beautiful Mind) or go from being a supporting nominee at SAG to a leading player with Oscar (Keisha Castle-Hughes in Whale Rider / Kate Winslet in The Reader).

How will this all shake out?

Musings from SAG screenings (Pt 2): Judy, Bombshell, Little Women, and Dolemite

renee's first SAG winsIf you missed part one, we've invited a longtime SAG member to share this thoughts from SAG Nominating Committee screenings of the would be contenders... 

JUDY:  This one definitely got the most lackluster response.  When the movie was over, there was only a smattering of applause—though I had the feeling that had something to do with the way it ends.  It kind of ends with a whimper. But people got on their feet for Renee Zellweger—who appeared along with Finn Wittrock. They gushed about her performance—the acting, the singing, all of it.  And she had some interesting things to say about the research she did—particularly in regard to addiction. It’s an engaging performance, I think—but is it really as much of a “transformation” as people say?  I feel like you see a lot of Renee Zellweger in there—like, it’s as much Judy Garland playing Renee Zellweger as it is Renee Zellweger playing Judy Garland. Does that make any sense? And for what it’s worth, I hated the Oz stuff.  Was Louis B. Mayer a sexual predator?  You can’t just drop that suggestion into all the other horrible stuff and move on.  It all felt very undefined.

BOMBSHELL:  With no disrespect to Ms. Zellweger, the “transformation of the year” has got to be Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly...

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Musings from SAG screenings (Pt 1): The Farewell, The Irishman, Marriage Story

Special Secret Guest Post!

This New-York-based performer (and Emmy-nominated writer) has been a SAG member for 19 years, though this is his first time on the SAG Awards Nominating Committee.  He works primarily in television -- most famously, playing a role on a series that has been seen in over 100 countries. We've invited him to share impressions from SAG Nominating Committee screenings which are happening left and right of late. Here we go...

THE FAREWELL:  For what it’s worth, this is the only screening I’ve been to where the movie itself—not the panelist, but the movie itself—got a standing ovation.  I, frankly, wasn’t bowled over by it (I thought, for such a dramatic subject, the emotions were curiously muted—I didn’t feel much during the movie, but maybe that’s me)…But anyway, the crowd loved it.  When Awkwafina came out for the Q&A, the comments were positively effusive. One guy called it a “perfect” movie.  Everything was perfect, he said: the acting, the writing, the directing, the editing. (The editing?) With a celebrity in the room, it’s hard to know when people are really being honest with themselves.  But Awkwafina seemed super cool.

Side note: SAG members ask the dumbest questions.  One person asked Awkwafina how she got her start in the business—which is fine, but I’m thinking, really?  You’re in a room full of peers, you’ve just spent two hours watching something that’s ripe for discussion, and this is what you ask?  Look it up online. At least it gave her an entree to talk about her youtube video “My Vag,” which, amusingly, caught a few people off-guard. 

The Irishman and Marriage Story after the jump...

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