Related Posts
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Rarely can the exact outcome of an awards ceremony be predicted in its entirety with complete accuracy, as there is always the possibility of a film or individual pulling off an unexpected upset. Still, while this may not be the case, one can still get a general sense of what could win when looking back at all the previous award ceremonies of the previous months and noticing if there’s anything or anyone that’s been able to repeat their successes more than once. With this most recent Academy Awards, set to commence during the early evening of March 10th, countless analysts and industry professionals are placing their bets as to what will win the prize for Best Picture as well as all others given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the majority of them are looking to every event that’s happened so far throughout the award season in order to make their most educated guess possible. Fortunately for these people, it was just recently – Saturday, February 24th to be exact – that another ceremony was held that could help them form a more accurate assessment of what’s to come at the Oscars. Granted, the scope of this particular ceremony is a little bit more limited as it only focuses on one specific profession within the art of filmmaking, but given the group’s size and the event’s tendency to draw much attention from the media, such a condition does little to suggest that it isn’t valuable asset when it comes to predicting the Academy Awards. The event in question: the most recent Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards.
Overall, the SAG Awards don’t usually hand out more than a few accolades for performances in cinema over the course of their two-and-a-half hour (give or take several minutes) proceedings, with there only being six prizes given out this year specifically for cinematic performances. That’s all that the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Arts (SAG-AFTRA), a labor union representing thousands of actors working throughout the North American film industry, needs to honor its members though, and while nothing can be guaranteed for sure, many do look to the SAG Awards to determine who has the best chances of winning the same awards at the upcoming Oscars. For this year, SAG has simultaneously provided additional evidence that those who have already won several acting awards will receive the exact same prize at the Academy Awards while also throwing in a few unexpected recipients that make an already tight race even tighter and hard to predict. This may all seem rather surprising considering that the SAG Awards only have a select number of film-related prizes (one of which does not even have an equivalent category at the Oscars), but that only shows just how prominent actors are within the groups that decide these specific outcomes.
Although the closest thing to a Best Picture prize that the SAG Awards gives out has less to do with the film as a whole and more to do with the ensemble cast at the films’ core, the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture still holds a great deal of merit and can sometimes be a predictor of what will win Best Picture at the Oscars. Such was the case last year when Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won this very accolade (among other awards given to its various nominated actors) and went on to be named Best Picture at the Academy Awards just a few weeks later. If everything that’s happened so far (this most recent SAG Awards included) is any reliable proof, then one can expect Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” to repeat this exact same feat on Oscar night; having previously won similar prizes at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, and various other awards ceremonies, the film has only further strengthened its chances of winning the top prize with its receiving of Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Given the size of the film’s cast – one that contains the likes of Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Rami Malek, and Florence Pugh (among others who were honored by SAG that evening) – it’s no surprise that this star-studded ensemble was able to win over those participating in the voting, although given all that “Oppenheimer” has achieved so far, this win arguably reflects the film’s overall quality and more than just its cast.
On top of the aforementioned prize, two other actors who took part in “Oppenheimer” were also honored for their individual contributions to the film. These were Cillian Murphy, who won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of titular lead J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Robert Downey Jr., who was honored with the prize for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance as Lewis Strauss. How these wins affect the potential outcome of the equivalent awards given by the Academy Awards could not be more different. While Robert Downey Jr. winning at the Oscars seems to be all but cemented, with him having won several other Best Supporting Actor awards prior to the SAG Awards, Murphy’s win comes in the wake of him losing many of the previous Best Actor awards to Paul Giamatti of “The Holdovers” (who had also been nominated for the same SAG award). Granted, there were other Best Actor prizes Murphy won before this, so it’s safe to assume that, at least for the time being, the race for the Oscar is between Murphy and Giamatti and much too close to call.
A similar situation is playing out in the female acting categories, one of them more or less ensuring a similar win at the Oscars and the other making things a bit too tricky to predict at the moment. While Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who played Mary Lamb in “The Holdovers”, was able to add to her multiple Best Supporting Actress wins with her SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role, Lily Gladstone’s win of Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for playing Mollie Burkhart in “Killers of the Flower Moon” makes the race for the Oscar between her and Emma Stone, who was also nominated in this category for playing Bella Baxter in “Poor Things”, much closer than it already was. Either one of the two could be fortunate enough to take this prize at the upcoming Academy Awards, but in the meantime, one can only speculate as to who has the stronger odds.
Lastly, there was the award for Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture, a prize that has no equivalent at the Academy Awards but is still deserving of at least some attention. This year, the accolade was given to the stunt team of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”, beating out “Barbie”, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”, and “John Wick: Chapter 4” in order to earn this honor. One may not be able to use this particular award to predict anything that will happen later on in award season, but that doesn’t mean it’s without any respectable value, at least not less than any of the other esteemed awards handed out by the Screen Actors Guild.
