With the Screen Actors Guild nominees just around the corner, I thought it’d be fun to try and guess what we’d be seeing in the five film categories. Obviously we have a lot that seems like 100%-certain locks, but, as usual, there are spots that are a toss-up between several potential nominees, making this a fascinating guessing game based on the awards we’ve seen thus far and what picks seem to have a lot of buzz behind them.
So, without further ado, let’s dive right into the first category.
Best Supporting Actress
Right now, I would only venture to say that two nominees appear to be a certainty, those being Patricia Arquette for Boyhood and Emma Stone for Birdman, a commonality that we’re going to be seeing a few times in these categories. Both of them have already been nominated multiple times, and in many cases won, so this leaves three spots to fill.
Another nominee that has gained a little steam (including a win from the National Board of Review and a nomination from the D.C. critics) has been Jessica Chastain for her incredible performance in J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year. I would say it’s a pretty good bet that we’ll hear her name called on Wednesday morning.
As for the final two spots, all we can really do is speculate. There are those that seem to think that Meryl Street will be nominated for Into the Woods, but there hasn’t really been any buzz in her corner as of yet. Plus, while she gave a fine performance in the film, it didn’t really leave me with the impression that it was particularly awards worthy. I’m thinking that it’s far more likely that we’ll be seeing Laura Dern take a nomination for her short, but memorable turn in Wild, in addition to Keira Knightley’s outstanding performance in The Imitation Game.
Therefore, my predictions look like this:
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman
Best Supporting Actor
For this category, I believe there are already three locks in place. The first goes to J.K. Simmons (who has dominated this category thus far) for his outstanding performance in Whiplash, with the other two going to Edward Norton for his great work in Birdman and Ethan Hawke in Boyhood. All three have won/been nominated in the category already, so you can be sure that they’ll be present once more.
Another nominee that I feel has a great chance of making it is Mark Ruffalo for his work in Foxcatcher, a film that has been getting a lot of praise for its performances. This last spot is really, really hard to call, because we simply don’t have much to go on, especially since Simmons has won nearly all the awards so far.
There are several different nominees it could be (Tom Wilkinson for Selma, Christoph Waltz for Big Eyes, etc.). However, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that they’ll nominate Robert Duvall for his fantastic performance in The Judge. He has a history of getting nominated for small-ish films like this (Get Low, The Apostle, and A Civil Action), so it at least seems possible.
Therefore, the nominees I predict are:
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash