2024 SAG Awards: Film Actor lineup includes 2 veterans and 3 first-timers
The men contending for the 2024 Best Film Actor SAG Award are Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”), Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”), Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”), and Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”). Our odds makers posit Murphy (17/5) as the likeliest victor, followed in order by Giamatti (18/5), Cooper (4/1), Wright (9/2), and Domingo (9/2).
All three of the latest category newcomers – Domingo, Murphy, and Wright – are concurrently in the running for Best Film Ensemble, although Domingo is nominated there for “The Color Purple” instead of “Rustin.” He and Wright are the sixth pair of Black actors to compete against each other for this individual honor, directly following 2022 champ Will Smith (“King Richard”) and his challenger, Denzel Washington (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”).
Domingo – a past film ensemble nominee for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (2021) – has now blazed a trail as the first Black, out LGBTQ+ community member to ever earn SAG recognition in a solo film category. The only similar examples on the TV side concerned Tituss Burgess (comedy actor, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” 2017) and Niecy Nash-Betts (movie/limited actress, “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” 2023).
Although this quintet’s age average is high since everyone is over 46, they also hold the rare distinction of all being under 60, which has only applied to two other lead male groups (2016 and 2020) within the last decade. At 58, Wright would be the fifth oldest winner in the category’s history after Washington (62, “Fences,” 2017), Jack Nicholson (60, “As Good As It Gets,” 1998), Jeff Bridges (60, “Crazy Heart,” 2010), and Gary Oldman (59, “Darkest Hour,” 2018).
Cooper is the 11th actor to reach a total of three nominations in this category, having previously landed bids for “Silver Linings Playbook” (2013) and “A Star Is Born” (2019). In addition to also being recognized as a member of those films’ casts, he has achieved an ensemble win for “American Hustle” (2014) and picked up a supporting notice for “Licorice Pizza” (2022).
The 19-year gap separating Giamatti’s first lead film nomination for “Sideways” (2005) from his present one is the second largest between any two mentions in the category after that of Anthony Hopkins (25 years; “Nixon,” 1996 and “The Father,” 2021). Although he lost on his first solo outing as well as to Cooper in the 2014 ensemble race (as a “12 Years a Slave” cast member), he has amassed four wins across three categories, including an ensemble one for “Sideways,” a supporting one for the film “Cinderella Man” (2006), and two TV ones for “John Adams” (2009) and “Too Big to Fail” (2012).
This year’s Best Film Actor winner will be revealed during the 30th SAG Awards ceremony, streaming February 24 exclusively on Netflix.
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