SAG nominations bring murky awards season into better focus

Also getting two nominations: “Room”, “Steve Jobs”, “Carol” and “The Danish Girl”.

But Oscar-winner Lawrence was absent from the list, along with David O. Russell’s new film “Joy” and Matt Damon’s box-office hit space adventure “The Martian“.

The Screen Actors Guild Awards honor the best film and television performances of the year. The Globe nominations are great for the Oscar hopes of Miller’s large, Australian dominated crew, including cinematographer John Seale, editor Margaret Sixel, production designers Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson and make-up and hairstylists Damian Martin and Elka Wardega.

In television categories, “Game of Thrones”, “Homeland” and “House of Cards” each earned three nominations of the SAG Awards, one of the major awards events in Hollywood since 1995. But the emergence of films such as The Big Short (best ensemble and supporting actor for Christian Bale) have made the field even more disparate.

Other best movie actors nods went to Johnny Depp for “Black Mass”, Leonardo DiCaprio for “The Revenant”, Michael Fassbender for “Steve Jobs” and Eddie Redmayne for playing a transgender pioneer in “The Danish Girl”.

Netflix scored big this year with a total of 10 nominations (2 for film and 8 for TV).

Cate Blanchett was nominated for her lead role in “Carol”, but will have to fight off firm competition from “Women in Gold” star, Dame Helen Mirren.

Though Tremblay, who plays a child who has known only the life of a captive in a room with his mother, has been praised for his performance, his nomination came as a surprise in a year when “Spotlight’s” Michael Keaton, “Love and Mercy’s” Paul Dano and “Creed’s” Sylvester Stallone were highly touted. Meanwhilem Michael Shannon stepped up as supporting actor in the small-budget drama 99 Homes.

Actors nominated in the TV movie or miniseries category include Elba for “Luther”, Ben Kingsley (“Tut”), Ray Liotta (“Texas Rising”), Bill Murray for his holiday variety special “A Very Murray Christmas” and Mark Rylance (“Wolf Hall”).

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. The cast of Modern Family, the comedy series in which acts the Colombian star Sofia Vergara, was also nominated. Blanchett also received a SAG nod for Carol, although her other award-worthy performance for 2015, the newsroom drama Truth, missed out and can likely be ruled out as an Oscar contender.

The SAG Awards are presented by SAG-AFTRA, the performing actors’ union.

The Golden Globe nominations will further define the race for the Oscars on February 28.