
The Screen Actors Guild released their list of award nominees this morning — one day before the Golden Globes announces their selections of the year’s best television shows and motion pictures. Among the top nominees for the 20th annual SAG awards were 12 Years a Slave and Lee Daniels’ The Butler – which solidified their status as front-runners for the Oscars.
12 Years a Slave led the pack with four nominations: outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture, outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role (Chiwetel Ejifor), outstanding performance by a male actor in a supporting role (Michael Fassbender) and outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role (Lupita Nyong’o). The film also scored big among other awards ceremonies after the Boston Society of Film Critics awarded the film its top prize while the New York Film Critics Online named it best picture of the year.
Lee Daniels’ The Butler was also a top contender with three nominations. Oprah Winfrey was nominated for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role and Forest Whitaker was among the nominees for outstanding performance by male actor in a leading role. The film was also nominated for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.
Meanwhile, in television Kerry Washington and Angela Bassett and Don Cheadle all earned nominations for their work this year, Washington for lead actress in the ABC drama Scandal, Bassett for her turn as Coretta Scott King in the Lifetime television movie Betty and Coretta, and Cheadle for his Showtime comedy series House of Lies.