Screen Actors Guild Awards 2015: Trumbo earns three nominations

Spring Valley-born actress Julianne Margulies, who stars in “The Good Wife“, is nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. (Fun fact, depending on your definition of “fun”: SAG hasn’t nominated a three-actor ensemble since 2004, when Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood, and Morgan Freeman repped Million Dollar Baby.) Besides singlehandedly legitimizing Netflix as a presence in the awards sphere beyond the Documentary categories, Beasts of No Nation has made a convincing argument for Elba as Best Supporting Actor, a hotly contested category with six actors jockeying for five slots.

Kiwi actor Dean O’Gorman figures in the Screen Actors Guild Awards with his portrayal of Kirk Douglas in the Hollywood blacklist drama Trumbo helping the movie score a best cast nomination. Yet, individual nominations, especially for movies, remained largely white – only adding to concerns this will be yet another monochromatic awards season.

On the small screen, the casts of “The Big Bang Theory“, “Key & Peele”, “Modern Family“, “Orange Is the New Black“, “Transparent” and “Veep” are nominated for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series. “It’s such a huge honor to be recognized by my friends and peers”, said Elba, who also earned a best leading TV drama actor nod for “Luther”.

Dismissed in early reviews as a routine biopic too bland to cause a major blip on Oscar radar, Trumbo has proven itself an awards force capable of hanging with the heavyweights.

Overall, it was shown more diversity among candidates of the TV than the movies, with nominations for Uzo Aduba in Orange is the New Black and Viola Davis in How to Get Away with Murder.

The nominations of “Beasts of No Nation” and “Straight Outta Compton”, which each function black male casts, got here at a time when Hollywood films have been criticized for lack of racial variety.

The more serious nominees in this category are Cate Blanchett (“Carol”), Brie Larson (whose indie sensation “Room” also drew a nod for supporting actor Jacob Tremblay) and Saorise Ronan (“Brooklyn”).

Other best actor nominees are Johnny Depp for “Black Mass”, Michael Fassbender for “Steve Jobs” and Eddie Redmayne for “The Danish Girl“. Nominees are selected by separate movie and TV nominating panels, each comprised of more than 2,000 randomly selected SAG members, and the organization’s choices highlighted a few underdog performances.

Nominees for best dramatic ensemble are “Downton Abbey“, “Game of Thrones”, “Homeland”, “House of Cards” and “Mad Men”.

The newspaper thriller “Spotlight”, which leads most Oscar polls, was also nominated for its ensemble as well as a best supporting actress turn by Rachel McAdams.

The nominations were announced by Anna Faris (“Mom”) and Anthony Mackie (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) at the Pacific Design Center. The awards will be handed out during a ceremony on 30 January (16).