Dec 20, 2007 8:00 am US/Pacific
'Into the Wild' Leads SAG Nominations
LOS ANGELES (AP) ―
The road-trip drama "Into the Wild" received a leading four Screen
Actors Guild Awards nominations Thursday, including honors for lead
actor Emile Hirsch and supporting players Hal Holbrook and Catherine
Keener.
Directed by Sean Penn, "Into the Wild" also was nominated for
performance by its overall cast, along with the Western "3:10 to Yuma,"
the crime sagas "American Gangster" and "No Country for Old Men," and
the musical "Hairspray."
Conspicuously absent from the guild field was the British romantic
melodrama "Atonement," which was shut out after leading the Golden
Globe nominations a week earlier with five nominations.
Hirsch was nominated as best actor for his role as fierce idealist
Christopher McCandless, a recent college graduate who abandoned a cozy
life and took to the road for two years, coming to a tragic end in the
Alaska wilderness in the 1990s.
Other best-actor nominees were George Clooney as a
conscience-stricken attorney in "Michael Clayton," Daniel Day-Lewis as
an oil baron in "There Will Be Blood," Ryan Gosling as a social misfit
with a life-size doll for a girlfriend in "Lars and the Real Girl" and
Viggo Mortensen as a Russian mobster in "Eastern Promises."
Nominated for best actress were Cate Blanchett as the British
monarch in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," Julie Christie as a woman
fading from Alzheimer's in "Away From Her," Marion Cotillard as singer
Edith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose," Angelina Jolie as journalist Mariane
Pearl in "A Mighty Heart" and Ellen Page as a whipsmart pregnant teen
in "Juno."
Blanchett also was nominated for supporting actress as an
incarnation of Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There," a fanciful film biography
featuring six different performers playing variations of the musician.
Guild awards will be presented Jan. 27 in a ceremony televised on TNT and TBS.
The guild choices solidified prospects for many performers to
compete at Hollywood's big prizes, the Academy Awards, whose
nominations come out Jan. 22. But as with the snub of "Atonement," they
also further clouded the field in an unusual year when no clear
favorites have emerged.
Though critically acclaimed, "Into the Wild" was shut out on acting
nominations for the Golden Globes. Along with Keener and Holbrook,
whose characters become surrogate family for Hirsch's McCandless, the
guild supporting lineup included two others overlooked by the Globes:
Tommy Lee Jones as a wayworn sheriff in "No Country for Old Men" and
Ruby Dee as mother to Denzel Washington's crime overlord in "American
Gangster."
Jones will compete against "No Country for Old Men" co-star Javier
Bardem, who may be the closest thing to an Oscar front-runner at this
point for his electrifying performance as a ruthless killer tracking a
missing cache of drug money.
Unlike the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes, which face turmoil
caused by striking Hollywood writers, the guild awards look as though
they can come off as planned. With actors showing strong solidarity on
strike issues, SAG has reached an agreement with the Writers Guild of
America for one of its members to write the ceremony.
If the strike that began last month lingers, though, the Globes on
Jan. 13 and Oscars on Feb. 24 face possible protests by striking
writers, and stars may stay away rather than cross picket lines.
The Writers Guild rejected a request from Globe organizers to allow
striking writers to work on that show. Oscar organizers have not yet
asked for a similar waiver but face the same prospect.
Actors guild winners often go on to win Oscars, including three from
2006: lead performers Helen Mirren for "The Queen" and Forest Whitaker
for "The Last King of Scotland" were the guild and Oscar winners, as
was supporting-actress Jennifer Hudson for "DreamGirls." Guild
supporting-actor winner Eddie Murphy for "DreamGirls" lost at the
Oscars to Alan Arkin for "Little Miss Sunshine."
"Little Miss Sunshine" won the guild prize for overall acting
ensemble, SAG's equivalent of a best-picture honor, while "The
Departed" won best picture at the Oscars.
Film and TV nominees were chosen by two groups of 2,100 people
randomly chosen from the guild's 120,000 members. The guild's full
membership is eligible to vote for winners.
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