HOLLYWOOD - With the Golden Globes behind us and the Academy Awards still to come, the buzz surrounding Chicago and The Hours has made them virtually old standards on nominee lists. The Screen Actors Guild list of nominees, announced this morning, is no exception; Chicago has five nominations and The Hours four. That's not to say that SAG, known for honoring performances that the other major kudos-giving organizations tend to ignore, has broken with its long-standing tradition of putting less-awarded--yet truly great--performances in the spotlight. This year, the recipients of that largess are Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina, nominated for lead actress and supporting actor respectively for their work in Frida; Michelle Pfeiffer in the supporting actress category for White Oleander; and Christopher Walken in the supporting actor category for Catch Me If You Can.
Chicago's main players, Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger, received nods in the lead acting categories, while supporting nods went to Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah. Given that, it's not surprising that the film was nominated in the best ensemble category as well.
As for the much-touted performances in The Hours, Nicole Kidman snagged a nomination in the lead category, while Julianne Moore and Ed Harris got supporting nods. (Moore also competes against costar Kidman in the lead category for her work in Far From Heaven.)
And where, you might ask, is Meryl Streep? Nowhere on this list--not for her performance in The Hours, though the ensemble cast is nominated, and not for her supporting work in Adaptation, whose ensemble also made the list.
In fact, Streep is probably the biggest SAG snub this year, with the possible exception of Edward Norton and Barry Pepper, whose work in Spike Lee's 25th Hour has gone largely unnoticed during awards show season.
In the television arena, Globe winners Tony Shalhoub and Kim Cattrall also got SAG nominations, Cattrall in the lead actress category this time, since there are no SAG awards for supporting performances in TV. Cattrall shut out her costars, even the ubiquitous Sarah Jessica Parker, who wasn't nominated for the first time since 2000.
Other than that, the TV nominees are pretty much the usual suspects--The West Wing, The Sopranos and Friends all made the list as expected, although the inclusion of Lily Tomlin in the lead acting category for The West Wing may come as a bit of a shock. Of course, her costar, perennial nominee and sometime winner Allison Janney, is on the list, too, though Stockard Channing isn't. She'll be around, though, since her work on the TV movie The Matthew Shepard Story has been honored.
The full list of movie and television nominees follows: