As much of Los Angeles burns, it’s hard to think of anything else. But this morning, as Oscar nominations voting opened, SAG-AFTRA announced its nominees for the 31st SAG Awards, so we might as well take a look at what and who the acting guild’s nominating committee — made up of 2,500 members selected from the overall membership of some 160,000 — chose to highlight and ignore.
Not surprisingly, the guild, which leans more populist than most other awards groups, wholeheartedly embraced two acclaimed blockbusters: Universal’s Broadway adaptation Wicked, with a field-leading five noms (including one for stunts!), and Searchlight’s Bob Dylan drama A Complete Unknown, with four. Both films’ tallies included multiple individual acting noms — including far-from-assured noms for supporting actor Jonathan Bailey for the former, and supporting actor Edward Norton and supporting actress Monica Barbaro for the latter — as well as noms for best ensemble, which many treat as the SAG Awards‘ equivalent of best picture. (The other three nominees for that honor were, as expected, Neon’s Anora, Focus’ Conclave and Netflix’s Emilia Pérez.)
But lest one make too many assumptions about the makeup and tastes of the nom-com, it also made some pretty audacious decisions to back non-mainstream fare over higher-profile options.
Voters bestowed not one but two unexpected noms on Roadside’s little-indie-that-could The Last Showgirl — Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis for lead and supporting actress, respectively — as well as a lead actor nom for Daniel Craig (A24’s Queer), a supporting actor nom for Jeremy Strong (Briarcliff/Rich Spirit’s The Apprentice) and a supporting actress nom for Danielle Deadwyler (Netflix’s The Piano Lesson).
At the same time, they declined to nominate A-listers like Angelina Jolie, lead actress of Netflix’s Maria; Denzel Washington, supporting actor of Paramount’s Gladiator II; and Nicole Kidman, lead actress in A24’s Babygirl.
A consolation for some of the other big-names who missed individual noms, like Selena Gomez, supporting actress of Emilia Pérez, and Conclave supporting actress Isabella Rossellini and supporting actors John Lithgow and Stanley Tucci: they are still nominated, as part of their respective ensembles.
The most interesting cases, to me, are the split-decisions, which seem to indicate that nom-com members watched a film but had conflicted feelings about it. For instance, they nominated Colman Domingo of A24’s Sing Sing for lead actor, but not his costar, Clarence Maclin, for supporting actor; Adrien Brody of A24’s The Brutalist for lead actor, but not his costars, Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones, for supporting actor and supporting actress, respectively; and Demi Moore of Mubi’s The Substance for lead actress, but not her costar, Margaret Qualley, for supporting actress.
Given that SAG-AFTRA is not only populist, but also predominantly composed of Americans, landing a nom was always going to be a very uphill climb for the likes of Fernanda Torres, lead actress in Sony Classics’ I’m Still Here; Joan Chen, supporting actress in Focus’ Dìdi; and Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin, lead actress and supporting actress, respectively, in Bleecker Street’s Hard Truths. So I wouldn’t read too much into the fact that they missed.
The final round of SAG Awards voting begins a week from today on Jan. 15 and runs until Feb. 21.
