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Story by: Jack Foley
MYSTIC River, Clint Eastwood’s
acclaimed character study about three childhood friends whose
secret past comes back to haunt them following the murder of one
of their daughters, leads the nominations for the Screen Actors
Guild awards, which will be presented on February 22.
Sean Penn secured a best lead actor nomination, while co-star,
Tim Robbins, is up for best supporting actor, and the whole cast
- which includes Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne - are in the
running for the ensemble category, the award for the cast of a
film.
Its main competition will come from The
Station Agent, a film about a dwarf who inherits a derelict
railway depot, which also secured three nominations - including
one for actress, Patricia Clarkson, and the ensemble.
Other films in best ensemble are The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, In
America and the horse-racing drama, Seabiscuit,
which boasted the likes of Tobey Maguire, Chris Cooper and Jeff
Bridges among its cast.
Oscar favourite, Bill Murray, landed a best actor nomination,
for Lost in Translation,
as did Sir Ben Kingsley, for House
of Sand and Fog, and Johnny Depp, for Pirates
of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
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In the female category, Charlize Theron will compete against
Diane Keaton, Naomi Watts and teenage actress, Evan Rachel Wood,
for the accolade. Theron has drawn considerable acclaim for her
performance as a real-life serial killer, in Monster,
while Keaton secured a nomination for Something’s
Gotta Give (in which she is reunited with Jack Nicholson),
Watts for 21 Grams and Wood
for teen drama, Thirteen.
In the best supporting actor category, the excellent Ken Watanable
has been nominated for his emotional turn in Tom Cruise’s
epic, The Last Samurai, alongside
Alec Baldwin, for The Cooler,
Chris Cooper, for Seabiscuit, and Benicio Del Toro, in 21 Grams.
The supporting actress category will be contested by The Cooler’s
Maria Bello, Whale Rider’s
Keisha Castle-Hughes, Pieces of April’s Patricia Clarkson,
Thirteen’s Holly Hunter and Cold
Mountain’s Renee Zellweger.
The awards, which provide another useful indicator of possible
Oscar success, also honour the best in television performances,
and controversial mini-series, Angels in America, which has yet
to be shown in the UK, collected six nominations for Al Pacino,
Meryl Streep, Jeffrey Wright, Mary-Louise Parker, Justin Kirk
and Emma Thompson.
As per usual, the TV drama category was dominated by NBC's The
West Wing, which landed four nominations, including nods for Martin
Sheen, Stockard Channing and Allison Janney, as well as a best
drama cast nomination.
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