'Wicked' tops SAG Awards nominations as many big names are snubbed

[January 09, 2025]  By JAKE COYLE

“Wicked” topped nominations to the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards on Wednesday, landing a leading five nominations including best ensemble, and individual nods for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey.

Out-of-control wildfires that swept across Los Angeles and Southern California on Tuesday night forced the Screen Actors Guild to cancel its plans to announce the nominations live Wednesday morning. The nominations were instead issued by press release by SAG, which last year began a multiyear deal with Netflix to stream the awards.

The smash hit musical “Wicked” saw its Oscar chances rise with the nominations to the SAG Awards, one of the most predictive Academy Awards bellwethers. The movie's big morning — it even scored a nod for stunt ensemble — came after a celebratory night, too. The film was honored by the National Board of Review Awards in New York on Tuesday.

The other nominees for best ensemble are “Anora,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez” and “A Complete Unknown.”

It was an especially strong showing for the Bob Dylan drama “A Complete Unknown.” It came away with four nominations, including Timothée Chalamet for best male actor, and supporting nods for both Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro.

The best male lead nominees were largely as expected: Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”), Daniel Craig (“Queer”), Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”), Ralph Fiennes (“Conclave”) and Chalamet.

Coming off her rousing victory at the Golden Globes, Demi Moore was among the nominees for best female actor in a leading role for “The Substance.” She was joined by Erivo, “Emilia Pérez” breakout Karla Sofía Gascón, Mikey Madison of “Anora” and Pamela Anderson for “The Last Showgirl.”

Snubbed stars

That surprisingly left out some big names. Angelina Jolie (“Maria”) missed out, as did Nicole Kidman (“Babygirl”). A few of the most acclaimed female actors of the year, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Hard Truths”) and Globe winner Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”), also were overlooked.

“The Last Showgirl” had more to celebrate, too, with an unexpected nomination for Jamie Lee Curtis in supporting female actor. Her fellow nominees are Barbaro, Grande, Danielle Deadwyler (“The Piano Lesson”) and Zoe Saldaña (“Emilia Perez”).

Jeremy Strong was nominated for his supporting performance as Roy Cohn in the Donald Trump film “The Apprentice,” but his co-star, Sebastian Stan, went unnominated for both “The Apprentice” and his Golden Globe-winning role in “A Different Man.” The other nominees for best supporting male actor were Bailey, Norton, Yura Borisov (“Anora”) and the category frontrunner, Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain”).

A few widely forecast supporting performances were snubbed there, too, including Denzel Washington (“Gladiator II”) and Guy Pearce (“The Brutalist”).

Predictive power of the SAGs

The SAG Awards are arguably the most telling Oscar forecast there is. Their picks don’t always align exactly with those of the film academy, but they often come very close to mirroring them.

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Cynthia Erivo, left, and Ariana Grande in a scene from the film "Wicked." (Universal Pictures via AP)

The last three best ensemble winners — “Oppenheimer,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “CODA” — all went on to win best picture at the Academy Awards. All but one of the SAG acting winners of the last three years has also won at the Oscars. The sole exception was Lily Gladstone, who won SAG’s award for female actor last year for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” but the Oscar trophy went to Emma Stone (“Poor Things”).

In all likelihood, the Oscar field will look a lot like the SAG nominees. While some overlooked performances might still land an Oscar nomination, any eventual Academy Award winner, including the best picture recipient, is almost surely coming from those nominated Wednesday.

That's bad news for Brady Corbet's “The Brutalist,” which triumphed at the Globes but missed out on a SAG ensemble nomination. Best picture contender “Sing Sing” also came away with a single SAG nod.

In nominations also announced Wednesday, the Directors Guild favored most of the same films. For outstanding directorial achievement, it nominated Sean Baker (“Anora”), Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Pérez”), Edward Berger (“Conclave”), James Mangold (“A Complete Unknown”) and Corbet (“The Brutalist”). That left out “Wicked” filmmaker Jon M. Chu, as well as “Dune: Part Two” director Denis Villeneuve. The guild also failed to nominate a female filmmaker, like “The Substance” director Coralie Fargeat.

Those nominations only further muddied the waters in a hard-to-predict best picture race. Rarely does a film win the Academy Awards' top prize without a DGA nomination. The only exceptions in recent history are “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989) and “CODA” (2022). That means that as well as “Wicked” did with the screen actors, it still can't be called an Oscar favorite.

‘Shōgun’ continues to dominate

Coming off sweeps at the Emmys and the Golden Globes, FX's “Shōgun” continued to run roughshod through the competition, landing a leading five nominations Wednesday, including best ensemble and individual nods for Hiroyuki Sanada, Anna Sawai and Tadanobu Asano.

Also faring well were “The Bear” (nominations for Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri and Liza Colón-Zayas), “Hacks” (Jean Smart) and “The Diplomat” (Keri Russell, Allison Janney).

The Screen Actors Guild Awards will be held Feb. 23 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The ceremony, hosted by Kristen Bell, will be streamed live on Netflix. In addition to the competitive awards, Jane Fonda will be presented with the guild’s Life Achievement Award.

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