The mural about US extremist excesses, “One Battle After Another,” topped the Actor Awards nominations on Wednesday, confirming its front-runner status in the Oscar race.
The Paul Thomas Anderson feature film received seven nominations, the most in SAG-AFTRA awards history. He is, in particular, nominated for “Best Acting Ensemble,” the most popular category of this ceremony.
Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays a former far-left military supporter who is overtaken by a former enemy and white supremacist (Sean Penn) who threatens his daughter (Chase Infinity), will be in contention for the best actor prize.
In particular, he'll face Timothée Chalamet, who bursts onto the screen as a ping-pong player with insatiable ambition in Marty Supreme, and Michael B. Jordan, who plays twins battling vampires in the segregationist South in The Sinners.
The rest of the One Battle After Another cast (Chase Infinity, Sean Penn, Basio del Toro and Teyana Taylor) were nominated in their respective categories, and the film was also nominated in the Best Stunt Actor category.
As such, it has established itself as “a big favorite at the Oscars,” Variety columnist Clayton Davis explains to AFP, with its main competition being “Sinners,” which received four Actor nominations on Wednesday.
“This is starting to look a little like the La La Land/Moonlight rivalry in 2017,” the journalist notes.
In addition to confirming that expected duel for the best picture Oscar, the Actor Awards ceremony saw “Marty Supreme” and “Hamnet,” a tragedy about Shakespeare's personal life, receive three nominations each on Wednesday.
Jessie Buckley, who plays the playwright's grief-stricken wife over the loss of her son, was nominated in the best actress category.
The actress “feels like she's guaranteed to win,” Mr. Davis says.
In the male supporting cast, Paul Mescal, who plays William Shakespeare, will join a hotly contested race that includes One Battle After Another stars Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro, as well as Jacob Elordi for Frankenstein.
The Actors Awards, which got a new name this year and shelved the name “SAG Awards”, are presented by actors and are therefore considered a very good indicator for the Oscars.
Actors form the most important panel of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards prestigious gold statuettes.
Their ceremony will take place on March 1 in Los Angeles and will be broadcast on Netflix, two weeks before the Oscars.
