SAG Award Nomination Snubs and Surprises, From Kristen Stewart to Ben Affleck

Display screen Actors Guild voters simply dropped just a few bombs into an awards season that was already reeling from the current cancellation of nearly each reside occasion within the month of January. And within the course of, the appearing group left just a few large questions looming.

Like, is Kristen Stewart not a lock for an award for taking part in Princess Diana in “Spencer,” the best way her partisans and most pundits have been anticipating?

Are there too many supporting actors in “Belfast” for voters to maintain them straight?

Is Ben Affleck actually a contender for the largely dismissed drama “The Tender Bar”?

What occurred to Aunjanue Ellis from “King Richard?”

Do voters assume “West Facet Story” is a one-woman present starring Ariana DeBose?

And the way can “The Energy of the Canine” obtain three particular person nominations and never be nominated within the ensemble class?

In movie nominations that contained extra surprises than regular, presumed favorites like Stewart, Ellis and “Belfast” actors Jamie Dornan and Ciaran Hinds have been bypassed whereas surprises like Affleck and Cate Blanchett (“Nightmare Alley”) confirmed up as a substitute.

However the strangest notes got here within the ensemble class, the place two of the season’s presumed frontrunners, “The Energy of the Canine” and “West Facet Story,” have been omitted of a class that’s purported to be essential for movies that need to win the Finest Image Oscar. And “The Energy of the Canine” did so despite the fact that it had extra particular person nominations than some other movie, three, whereas ensemble nominee “Don’t Look Up” didn’t have a single particular person nom and “Belfast,” “CODA” and “King Richard” solely had one.

Does that imply we have now to begin treating “Home of Gucci” (two particular person noms plus ensemble) like the favourite? Completely not. It simply implies that the marginally greater than 2,000 randomly-selected SAG members on the movie nominating committee made some odd selections and had some uncommon favorites.

And it implies that whereas Oscar voters will most likely agree with most of SAG’s selections, we will anticipate finding extra disagreements than regular this yr.

Nonetheless, the failure of “Spencer” to make the longlist of 15 in BAFTA voting, which was additionally introduced Wednesday morning, adopted by Stewart’s omission from the SAG nominations, shouldn’t be a great signal for a movie that could be too austere and arty for voters.

And Netflix can’t be blissful seeing “The Energy of the Canine” omitted of the ensemble class solely three days after it gained the highest award on the diminished and ignored Golden Globes – although the streamer can actually take some solace in the truth that in three of the final 4 years, the Finest Image winner hasn’t obtained a SAG ensemble nomination. (Within the 22 straight years earlier than that, each Oscar winner had.)

So there’s no hard-and-fast lesson to be discovered from SAG voters this yr, besides that they are often an odd group. And that that is an odd yr that’s solely getting odder.