SAG Preview – The Silver Acting Playbook

If there is to be a Crash/Driving Miss Daisy/Chariots of Fire-like upset in Best Picture, there is a great chance it will show up here, in the SAG ensemble award.  The one-two punch of one movie winning both the PGA and SAG could mean the Oscar race is over.  What if two different films win? It’s happened before. It happened last year.  What less likely to happen, though, is that the Academy will reflect SAG over the PGA for the simple fact that the PGA is the only other major awards group that uses the preferential ballot with ten nominees.

Since 2009, when the Oscar voters switched to more than five nominees, they’ve only matched SAG ensemble once, and that was with The King’s Speech that made a sweep of the guilds.  Last year, The Help won. In 2009, Inglourious Basterds won.  That’s only three years to make comparisons but it’s enough to say that there’s a good chance it won’t match with Best Picture this year.  Then again it might. For the first time in a long while Best Picture is up for grabs.

Best Actress
The real showdown here is Jessica Chastain vs. Jennifer Lawrence for lead actress.  There is a model for a lead actress winning without any other SAG nominations but those have generally gone to vets – Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball, Julie Christie for Away from Her, Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side.  That might bode well for Chastain in that most actors know she came from stage.  That puts her slightly in the “respectability” category.

On the other hand, Jennifer Lawrence is a huge, popular star in a film that those actors LOVED. They didn’t give it four acting nominations, like the actors in the Academy but they gave it three.  There are 100,000 of them so it’s hard to think they won’t go for the bigger star in the movie they liked THAT much.

Will win: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Might win: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Should win: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty  

Best Actor

Daniel Day-Lewis has already won two SAG prizes for Best Actor. He’s going on number 3 and will probably win.  But as you saw from the blowback from critics, even the Los Angeles Film Critics could not see fit to award Daniel Day-Lewis, so you just never know what people will do.  The two actors who might give him a bit of a challenge would be Hugh Jackman for Les Miserables and Bradley Cooper for Silver Linings. Again, if they LOVED Silver Linings THAT much, as it appears that they do, they might opt for the more popular star, Cooper, who has the added advantage of playing a character with a disability and you know how Oscar/SAG voters love characters with disabilities!   Would that the disabled among us were THAT richly reward in real life. Also, don’t forget when Johnny Depp won Best Actor for Pirates. There is a People’s Choice/Golden Globes thread that runs through the SAG that makes them more apt to award more popular stars and films than the Oscars.

Who will win: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Who might win: Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings or Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Who should win: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln 

Best Supporting Actress

I think it’s down to Sally Field vs. Anne Hathaway and I think Hathaway has this.  It’s true that Field is enormously popular in the actor’s branch but all of the buzz is with Hathaway and she’ll carry it through to the Oscar.  Sally Field has only been nominated once for her film work, for Forrest Gump and lost to Dianne Wiest  for Bullets Over Broadway.  If SAG voters are paying attention, which they probably aren’t, they would award Sally Field after all of these years.  I’m guessing that the SAG voters really did get nor like Lincoln all THAT much so I would have to say that Hathaway can’t be beat.

Will win: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserable
Who might win: Sally Field, Lincoln
Who should win: a tough call but the edge goes to Field for the more difficult performance overall. Both actresses are deserving.  

Best Supporting Actor

This is one of the toughest categories to call. It is a race without a frontrunner.  Robert De Niro has won two Oscars but he’s never won a SAG.  Tommy Lee Jones and Alan Arkin have won SAGs in ensemble only but not in individual categories.  Philip Seymour Hoffman has the biggest part in a movie they didn’t like well enough to even give Amy Adams or Joaquin Phoenix nominations.  I don’t know for sure because anyone could win here and it wouldn’t be THAT surprising but something tells me that it will be a night for Silver Linings Playbook to take supporting actor, actress and ensemble.  Of course, if Alan Arkin wins for Argo you know that tells you Argo is about to win ensemble.   Or Tommy Lee Jones could signal a Lincoln win.  

Who will win: I have no idea but I’ll say Robert De Niro for Silver Linings Playbook
Who might win: Alan Arkin, Argo or Tommy Lee Jones for Lincoln. 
Who should win: Tommy Lee Jones or Philip Seymour Hoffman

Ensemble

Heading into the race, there are probably two movies that are fighting it out for the Ensemble prize and that would be Argo and Silver Linings Playbook.  I have heard actors talking about Silver Linings and how much they loved it on two separate occasions.  I have heard many people, in fact, talking about Silver Linings so that least me to believe it is the one to beat in a large consensus vote of 100,00 actors.  Then again, if Argo wins they get to see gorgeous George Clooney and equally gorgeous Ben Affleck take the stage.

It helps to have surprising nominations turn up to show how much the SAG loves a movie – Diane Kruger getting in for Inglourious Basterds, Tommy Lee Jones for No Country for Old Men, Joe Fiennes for Shakespeare in Love, Don Cheadle for Crash, and Dev Patel for Slumdog Millionaire.  If one of the other supporting actors from Les Miserables had made it in, like Eddie Redmayne or Samantha Barks that could signal a Les Miserables win (it could still win if Argo and Silver Linings split the vote).

Slumdog Millionaire and Return of the King (no other acting noms)  are probably the least nominated film to film to win ensemble there but they were winning everything anyway and their winning the SAG was a good bet that those films would go on to sweep the Oscars, having the actors on board.

I was the president of the drama club in high school and I studied at the Los Angeles Theater Academy and got my degree from UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television I like to think I know actors.  If Lincoln wins the SAG ensemble that means Lincoln is about to sweep the Oscars. If it doesn’t win, we’re probably headed for some kind of a split year. Not to be insulting or anything, but having been an actor and spent a lot of time with actors they are probably going to fall into the “Lincoln was boring” group.  Lincoln is like Return of the King in that it is a gigantic, undeniable ensemble of some of the best actors Hollywood has to offer.  Hell, most of the members of the Screen Actors Guild are IN Lincoln.

On the other hand – the sheer number of players in Lincoln could easily give it the win.

What will win: Silver Linings Playbook
What might win: Argo
What should win: Lincoln.

Screen Actors Guild

Official Site

Actor Comparison Charts

Won SAG | Won Oscar

Won SAG | Won Oscar

Won SAG | Won Oscar

2002