‘Sinners’ Are Winners At Actor Awards But Can It Repeat At Oscars?

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With just two weeks to go until Oscar night, and only four days left of voting for Academy members, leave it to the actors to inject a little suspense and a few question marks into a race that had seemed predictable earlier in the season but now may be turning into a nail biter.

At Sunday night’s Actor Awards Presented by Sag-Aftra Sinners turned out to be winners big time after mostly being runner up at the other awards shows this season to Warner Bros. stable mate One Battle After Another. But this all-important show told a different story, however I was expecting it, almost certain Ryan Coogler’s hit genre-defying drama would take the Outstanding Cast award. How could it not, even with stiff competition from the likes of One Battle? What wasn’t necessarily expected though was the popular triumph of its star Michael B. Jordan playing dual roles of Smoke and Stack in the Outstanding Lead Actor category. Most pundits were predicting a second straight Timothee Chalamet victory for Marty Supreme, after also winning the same award last year for A Complete Unknown. That would have made SAG Awards history, but it wasn’t to be and was the second week in a row Chalamet has been upset after also losing at BAFTA (to I Swear’s Robert Aramayo who isn’t eligible in this year’s Oscar race). Now it seems what appeared to be Chalamet’s Oscar to lose may be up for grabs, not the sure thing it was after earlier Golden Globe and Critics Choice wins.

You could feel the love for Jordan in the room, certainly from where I was sitting. It was electric. At the after party Jordan told me he could feel the love himself and was genuinely humbled by it all. I mentioned the pure excitement that presenter Viola Davis seemed to have when she opened the envelope. She seemed gobsmacked! “I wasn’t sure if she was just showing surprise at who won or if she was so excited because it was me! ” he laughed. The Shrine auditorium lit up when he was announced, and that may also be because Jordan hadn’t been winning for most of the season and now he is a genuine contender to take it all, especially since his film has renewed mojo and of course broke all records as the most nominated film in Academy history with 16. That means it has been widely seen and that can go a long way since it is now the entire Academy that gets to vote in all categories. Before he climbed the stairs to the stage Jordan hugged fellow nominee, at SAG and the Oscars, Ethan Hawke who could also benefit from a more wide open Lead Actor race. As I told him before the show started, the key is just to get people to see his remarkable performance in Blue Moon which has only two nominations and is facing goliaths like Sinners, One Battle , and Marty Supreme. If you ask me the Actor Awards just made the Best Actor Oscar race quite interesting.

At the after party Marty Supreme director (and most Oscar nominated individual this year with 4) Josh Safdie told me he thought Sinners might be a new front runner for Best Picture but asked me, as a “prognosticator” what I thought. So I told him. Considering One Battle After Another has pitched a near perfect game so far, starting with the Gothams of all things, and won everywhere including Saturday night at the often prescient Producers Guild Awards which is the only one other than Oscar to use a preferential ballot for Best Picture, it is hard for me to imagine it not going all the way on Oscar night. It is an interesting conundrum for Warner Bros which released both Sinners and One Battle and may have to split their own votes. What a week that studio has had! Still it is undeniable that Sinners caught a wave Sunday night with a chance to ride it all the way in.

By the way I had to ask Safdie about his acting “discovery” Kevin O’Leary aka Mr. Wonderful of Shark Tank who was conspicuous on the red carpet, in the room, and at the after party dressed better and more flamboyantly than any of Marty Supreme cast including Chalamet. O’Leary was wearing something unique hanging around his neck to be sure. I snapped several shots of it. Safdie explained it was a basketball card the Shark bought with his partners, the one-of-a-kind 2007-08 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection Dual Logoman Autographs card—featuring Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryan they purchased for $12.9 million, and now Safdie said is worth about $25 million. It is so valuable O’Leary had a bodyguard with him protecting it. This is the kind of bling that no bejeweled actress in the room could possibly compete with for attention.

And if Warner Bros. wasn’t already having a big night , the well-liked and respected Amy Madigan took Female Actor in a Supporting Role for her hilariously horrific Aunt Gladys in Weapons, her first major win since taking the same award at Critics Choice a couple of months ago. With her delightful speech and goodwill she seems to be back on top despite being in a category where she is up again four other contenders all in Best Picture nominees. She represents the only nomination for Weapons but hopefully Oscar voters are following the new rules and seeing all the nominees (or not voting in categories where they haven’t). My informal poll at the PGA awards found a number of members still struggling to see everything in time which leads me to believe there are a large number of ballots that may be coming in nearer to Thursday’s deadline of 5pm pt.

Sean Penn held the flag at the Actor Awards for One Battle , and capitilizing on his BAFTA win last week is in a strong position for Actor in a Supporting Role, even without showing up in person for either ceremony. However with Globes winner Stellan Skarsgard inexplicably not nominated at SAG for Sentimental Value, Benicio Del Toro having won several critics awards early on, plus Jacob Elordi’s moving performance in Frankenstein a Critics Choice winner, there are infinite possibilities not least of which might be Delroy Lindo coming on strong for Sinners and getting maximum exposure from the Actor Awards even though he wasn’t individually nominated at SAG. His speech representing the Sinners Cast Award was a winner. This category now may be the toughest of all to call definitively.

So really now the only sure thing, short of a major shocker, is a Jessie Buckley win for Lead Actress in Hamnet. With Critics Choice, Globes, BAFTA, and now Actor Award, she seems like a lock. Her speeches are always great too so don’t expect an upset here.

As for the TV side of things, it looked from the first award given for Female Actor in a Drama Series going to Keri Russell in The Diplomat that SAG might have some surprises in store. That was the only one, as expected winners from The Studio, The Pitt , and Adolescence all followed similar wins elsewhere this season for those three shows.

As for the Actor Awards show itself, it was a breezy fun time (except for the repetitive ping pong matches for which the celebrity players seemed ill-prepared) and looked just great in the room where the Shrine Auditorium has never looked this good or elegant. It was completely transformed and Executive Producer and Showrunner Jon Brockett gave much credit to their Production Designer Matt Steinbrenner for the new cool look . Great speeches, and even great presenter patter for a change. Fun night.

The next stop is only if you happen to be in New York for the WGA awards next Sunday. Now that the Los Angeles ceremony was cancelled due to the WGAW staff strike, nominees will have to trek to the East Coast if they want to be there in person. I can tell you already to expect an Adapted Screenplay win for One Battle After Another, and a Original Screenplay win for Sinners , and no doubt more hardware for The Studio and The Pitt. Coming after Oscar voting is closed, WGA as the last of the major guild awards shows this season will settle nothing in terms of solving the questions brewing around the 98th Annual Academy Awards. .

On to the Oscars!