SAG Awards Preview

Tomorrow morning the Screen Actors Guild will announce their awards, starting early in the morning, around 5:30 am. The SAG awards are reliable predictors when it comes to Oscar’s acting categories. Getting an ensemble nod is always key to the run up for Best Picture. A film can win without it but it’s more difficult.  Beasts of the Southern Wild is not eligible for SAG so any Oscar predictions for that film in the acting categories will have to be made blind.

ENTER OUR PREDICT THE SAG NOMINATIONS CONTEST

Traditionally, like the Globes and the BFCAs, the NBR and now, the New York Film critics, the SAG awards can sometimes represent an earlier stage of the race. For instance, J. Edgar was nominated for SAG last year but then mostly shut out at the Oscars.  It takes time for word to spread, for the consensus to build and if you are doing the voting before the films have a chance to get out to the public you are taking a risk that even a SAG nominated actor or cast will not make the cut come Oscar time.

We have to do this fast, though, because the following day are the Golden Globe awards.  At least we can wait until the new year before we are then hit with the electoral college of the Oscar race, the guilds.

SAG awards are probably among the easier guilds to predict because most of us understand what a great performance is. We know it when we see it. The same way Nate Silver judges polls for the election, by looking at those that agree more than at those that don’t, the early critics awards give us some clue as to how things might turn out. There are a few things we know for sure, and some things we might be surprised by.

The SAG membership is huge. But the nominating committee is a more manageable size of roughly 2,000 compared to their 100,000 membership of active voters.

Like everything in Hollywood, SAG is driven by buzz, celebrity and power.  There is real buzz and fake buzz. Fake buzz will only take you so far. Real buzz can take you all the way. Every year, the studios try hard to push their contenders onto the list of talked about performers and it can sometimes work. Better yet, if a performance is getting lots of buzz already and all voters need is to be pointed in that direction.

The big question for tomorrow will be, which of the four Big Oscar Movies are going to wow the nominating committee? Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Les Miserables and Silver Linings Playbook all have a chance to make a bigger show, or not. All four of them could take one lead, one or two supporting and cast.  Lincoln has Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field all right up front. So expect four nominations for that movie. If they really like it a lot you might see someone else show up in the nominations, like James Spader.

Les Miserables should have Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and cast, at the very least. But if they really like it, it could also have Samantha Barks, Eddie Redmayne or someone else. Silver Linings can get Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Cast, and as such, it could lead the nominations tomorrow.  Zero Dark Thirty can get Actress, and maybe supporting, and maybe cast. If it gets cast that keeps it in the top spot to win. If it doesn’t get a cast nod, it’s going to be a somewhat harder win with an actor-dominated Academy.

There have been many great ensembles this year that would have been excellent choices that won’t make it in, like Cloud Atlas.

Some outside possibilities for nominations could be the excellent cast from Middle of Nowhere, admittedly, none of them stars yet but on the work alone they deserve it.

To that end, I’m going to make some predictions for tomorrow – I have no idea whether they will be right or not.

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Marion Cotillard, Rust & Bone
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Naomi Watts, The Impossible
Alt: Emayatzy Corinealdi, Middle of Nowhere, Meryl Streep, Hope Springs

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Denzel Washington, Flight
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Alt: John Hawkes, The Sessions

Supporting Actor
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Alan Arkin, Argo
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Alt. Eddie Redmayne, Les Miserables, Javier Bardem, Skyfall, John Goodman for either Flight or Argo

Supporting Actress
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Sally Field, Lincoln
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Ann Dowd, Compliance
Amy Adams, The Master
Alt. Lorraine Toussaint, Middle of Nowhere, Samantha Barks, Les Miserables, Gloria Reuben, Lincoln

Ensemble
Lincoln
Les Miserables
Argo
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Alt:
Flight

Screen Actors Guild

Official Site

Actor Comparison Charts

Won SAG | Won Oscar

Won SAG | Won Oscar

Won SAG | Won Oscar

2002