Jane Campion’s Dark Western The Power of the Dog and House of Gucci by Ridley Scott arrived at the top of the nominations for the SAG (Screen Actors Guild) Awards on Wednesday January 12, prizes awarded by the union of American actors.
The Power of the Dog has already won the Golden Globe for best dramatic picture this week and its main actors, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee, were all three selected by the voters of the SAG Awards. The competitors of Jane Campion’s film can however breathe: it was not retained in the flagship category of “best distribution”.
Presented at the Venice Film Festival last September, where the New Zealand director was awarded, The Power of the Dog received rave reviews and has since been released worldwide by netflix after a limited theatrical release. Jane Campion’s film and Ridley Scott’s film received three nominations each.
Benedict Cumberbatch is “unforgettable and astounding” in #ThePowerOfTheDog, and the Screen Actors Guild agrees!
He’s been nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the 2022 SAG Awards. pic.twitter.com/kddKIPjGja
— The Power of the Dog (@TPOTD) January 12, 2022
The roughly 124,000 potential SAG Awards voters clearly ignored the mocking comments that greeted Jared Leto’s performance and his earthy Italian accent in House of Gucci. He was selected in the category of best supporting role and will defend the colors of Ridley Scott’s film alongside Lady Gaga and the entire cast.
Congratulations @Lady Gaga & the whole @HouseOfGucciMov team ✨ https://t.co/rvsQ08hQeI
— SAG Awards® (@SAGawards) January 13, 2022
Also in the running in this last category, which for the SAG Awards is equivalent to that of the best feature film, we find the actors of Belfast, CODA, Don’t Look Up: Cosmic Denial and The Williams Method.
Belfast, in which Kenneth Branagh looks back on the violence in Northern Ireland he witnessed as a young man, is considered by experts as one of the big favorites of this awards season but has only obtained one individual nomination, for actress Caitriona Balfe.
Another surprise, Kristen Stewart was not selected for her role as Princess Diana in spencer, nor the young Rachel Zegler for the remake of West Side Story.
The SAG Awards are given by actors and as such are considered a very good indicator for the Oscars. Actors make up the largest college (around 10,000) within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that awards these awards.
On the television side, these are the series Succession and Ted Lasso who topped the nominations, with five each. The South Korean series Squid Game is present in the category of best cast, a first at the SAG for a series that does not use English.
#SquidGame made history as the first non-English series and first Korean series to be nominated for the @SAGawards.
Congratulations to the cast, nominated for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series from the Screen Actors Guild. #SAGAwards pic.twitter.com/FNqarn58j6
— Squid Game (@squidgame) January 12, 2022
The SAG Awards will be presented in Santa Monica, near Los Angeles, on February 27, exactly one month before the Oscars.