2012 Screen Actors Guild Nominations

Things just got interesting. Over the past few years (with the immergence of Twitter, specifically), everyone has become a movie awards expert. People predict, exclaim, argue – and by the end, there are so many opinions floating around, surely the collective bunch will have predicted the potential nominees. But with the announcement of the Screen Actors Guild nominations this morning, I’d be stunned if anyone accurately predicted all of these nominees. Surprise and snubs abound, but goddamn if things didn’t just get intriguing.

Few notes: I typically shy away from discussing TV, so those nominations aren’t listed below. And the entire cast of Beasts of the Southern Wild (including Oscar nominee front runner Quvenzhané Wallis and her co-star Dwight Henry) were deemed ineligible for SAG nominations.

Best Acting Ensemble

Argo
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Les Misérables
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

No Zero Dark Thirty is kind of surprising, but it seems The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel trumped The Master here, so I suppose it’s time for me to see that one.

Best Actor
Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
John Hawkes – The Sessions
Hugh Jackman – Les Misérables
Denzel Washington – Flight

Hugh Jackman

No Joaquin Phoenix. Perhaps his telling Interview article, in which he bashed the whole idea of movie awards, is coming back to bite him. Even though he has since retracted his statements, it seems Jackman was able to sneak in due to Phoenix’s gaff.

Best Actress
Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty
Marion Cotillard – Rust And Bone
Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
Helen Mirren – Hitchcock
Naomi Watts – The Impossible

Marion Cotillard

Emmanuelle Riva (Amour) and Rachel Weisz for (The Deep Blue Sea) both deserve placement over Helen Mirren, but with Marion in the mix, you aren’t going to hear any complaining from me.

Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin – Argo
Javier Bardem – Skyfall
Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln

Javier Bardem

By far the most heartbreaking snub of the morning had to be Bardem’s inclusion, thereby knocking out Matthew McConaughey’s perfect work in Magic Mike. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED Bardem in Skyfall, but this is a serious bummer. Moving on… does De Niro have a shot at the Oscar? In my opinion, hell yeah.

Best Supporting Actress
Sally Field – Lincoln
Anne Hathaway – Les Misérables
Helen Hunt – The Sessions

Nicole Kidman – The Paperboy

Maggie Smith –  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Nicole Kidman

I’ve heard nothing but polarizing things about Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy, so I was stunned to see Nicole Kidman here. I haven’t seen the film, and can’t fairly comment, but wow. And with Maggie Smith surprisingly in the mix, Ann Dowd (Compliance) and Amy Adams (The Master) fell by the wayside. Shame.

What do you all think? Are the many surprises of the SAGs shameful, or reinvigorating.

Full list of nominations, including for television, can be found here.