WEST HOLLYWOOD, January 26, 2002 — Although the early morning noise of jackhammers outside the Pacific Design Center was thankfully silenced for a few hours, it was quickly replaced by the noisy buzz of reporters and photographers who filled the SilverScreen Theater for the much-anticipated 8th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards announcements.
The SAG awards, given by the influential film and television performers union, are recognized as an early indicator of what is to come in the Oscar race but always feature some interesting departures, and this year, too, offered a few startling surprises.
It may have only been 6:45 in the morning, but actress Marisa Tomei still managed to look fetching in a black wrap dress and boots as she joined Ted Danson at the podium to make the announcements.
A beaming Tomei, (who was nominated as part of the In the Bedroom cast), could barely contain her elation as Danson announced her co-stars Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson as nominees in the female and male lead categories.
Not surprisingly, A Beautiful Mind made off with more than a few nods. Golden Globe winners Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly received nominations (for male and female lead), as did the film’s cast as a whole (including Ed Harris, Judd Hirsch, Christopher Plummer, Adam Goldberg, Paul Bettany, Josh Lucas and Anthony Rapp).
This SAG nomination is Crowe’s third in a row in the male lead category (earlier nods were for Gladiator and The Insider). The Aussie was also previously nominated along with the casts of Gladiator, The Insider and L.A. Confidential.
Sean Penn (I Am Sam), Denzel Washington (Training Day) and, in a bit of a surprise, Kevin Kline (Life as a House), join Wilkinson and Crowe in the male actor category.
Conspicuously absent from the list was Will Smith for his lauded turn in Ali and Billy Bob Thornton for any of his acclaimed performances in three films, Bandits, The Man Who Wasn’t There and Monster’s Ball.
Spacek and Connelly (who was considered a supporting actress by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, leaving Academy voters with an intriguing choice) will face off against Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball), Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones’s Diary) and Judi Dench (Iris), who was also named as a supporting female nominee (a category she won last year) for The Shipping News.
In a major shock, the most buzzed-about actress in town, Nicole Kidman, failed to earn a nomination for either of her highly hyped roles in The Others or Moulin Rouge (although she was nominated as part of the cast of the latter film).
In fact, while the casts of Moulin Rouge, Gosford Park and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring all earned nods, only one actor from each film (Jim Broadbent, Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen, respectively) received individual nominations–and those were in the supporting slots.
Other film surprises included a supporting female nomination for eight-year-old Dakota Fanning for her turn as Penn’s precocious, bright-eyed daughter in I Am Sam. She
[PAGEBREAK]
finds herself up against vets Mirren, Dench, Cameron Diaz (Vanilla Sky) and Cate Blanchett (Bandits).
And no one predicted Ethan Hawke would receive his first major awards show notice for his supporting turn as a rookie cop in Training Day. He’ll compete with Broadbent, McKellen, Ben Kingsley (Sexy Beast) and Hayden Christensen (Life as a House).
In the television categories, a slew of usual suspects–The Sopranos, The West Wing, Sex and the City, Frasier, Will & Grace, Everybody Loves Raymond and newcomer Six Feet Under–led the SAG nominations, but the awards’ lack of supporting actor categories created some curious co-star competitions and surprising omissions.
It came as no shock that Sex and the City‘s Sarah Jessica Parker was nominated for outstanding performance by a female in a comedy series. But what was unexpected was the announcement of Parker’s co-star Kim Cattrall (typically considered a supporting actress) in the same category. Similarly, Frasier‘s Kelsey Grammer will face off with his co-star David Hyde Pierce in the male comedy lead slot, as will Raymond‘s Ray Romano and Peter Boyle.
Even odder, Will & Grace’s‘s second bananas Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally made the cut in the best comedy actor categories, while the show’s erstwhile leads Eric McCormack and Debra Messing only received nods as part of the show’s cast. If the SAG voters find these divisions of loyalties vexing, things could bode well for less-conflicted nominees like Friends nominee Jennifer Aniston, who also appears with her cast in the comedy ensemble category.
Competition is particularly stiff in the female actor in a drama race, with the usual field of five nominees expanded to six due to a tie. The Sopranos‘s Lorraine Bracco and Edie Falco and The West Wing‘s Stockard Channing and Allison Janney will vie with Gilmore Girls‘s Lauren Graham and Judging Amy‘s Tyne Daly.
The male dramatic roster includes familiar faces Dennis Franz, James Gandolfini and Martin Sheen, along with newcomer Peter Krause (Six Feet Under) and Richard Dreyfuss for his first series, the ratings-impaired The Education of Max Bickford.
Golden Globe winners Charlie Sheen (Spin City), Kiefer Sutherland (24), Jennifer Garner (Alias) and Rachel Griffiths (Six Feet Under) did not make the list in their respective categories, although Griffiths joined her castmates in the dramatic ensemble category.
And while CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Law & Order earned nods in the drama ensemble category, no actor from either show was nominated in for a lead or supporting role.
As they were for the twice-blessed Dench, the SAG nominations proved doubly pleasurable for a few veteran performers who each received two individual nods: Along with her In the Bedroom nom, Spacek was also noticed for her work in the Lifetime television movie Midwives. Meanwhile, Dreyfuss picked up a two-fer for both his series and the HBO film The Day Reagan Was Shot, and Sexy Beast’s Kingsley also earned kudos for the ABC film Anne Frank.
The one thespian who knows for certain he’ll be taking home an award is actor Edward Asner. The venerable Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant star–and former SAG president–will be presented with the guild’s 38th Annual Lifetime Achievement Award.
The SAG Awards will be presented Sunday, March 10, at 8 p.m. on TNT.
