SAG scramble

There's no shortage of drama hovering over the SAG Awards this year, which seems only fitting for a show that's all about actors.

Among the hot-button questions facing the Screen Actors Guild as they prepare to announce nominations for the 13th annual SAG Awards on Thursday morning:

Will breakout Dreamgirl Jennifer Hudson cause some kudos nightmares? Which category will feature Leonardo DiCaprio if he gets cited for "The Departed?" And which newcomers -- if any -- will be able to break into the always competitive TV categories?

As industry honors go, a SAG Award is more meaningful than many other trophies because it's a pure peer-group prize. Only actors determine nominees and winners. At the Oscars, by contrast, actors draft nominees, but winners are chosen by all 5,800 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences -- including hair dressers, film editors and songwriters.

The SAG Awards also tend to exert serious influence over the Oscar races. The 1,500 thespians who decide Oscar contenders just received their nomination ballots last week and will certainly be watching the choices made by the 2,100 actors on the guild's nominating committee.

Perhaps the biggest SAG drama this season surrounds "Dreamgirls" star Hudson and which category she'll compete in. It's obvious to filmgoers that she's the lead star of "Dreamgirls," but she's campaigning in the supporting race at the Oscars because it's widely believed she'll have her best chance to win there.

The Golden Globes placed her in their supporting race, but SAG can be notoriously contrary. In recent years, guild voters upped Jennifer Connelly ("A Beautiful Mind") and Benicio del Toro ("Traffic") to the lead acting races with mixed results. Connelly lost, while de Toro won. Both prevailed in supporting races at the Oscars.

DiCaprio faces some category confusion with big roles in two films, "The Departed" and "Blood Diamond." He could drop down to supporting with "Departed," but the Globes nominated him in lead for both. What will SAG do?

Since the guild started to bestow its own awards for best film and TV performances in 1994, its winners have most often aligned with the eventual Oscar champs. Over 12 years, SAG predicted eight lead actor Oscar winners, nine lead actress winners and half the supporting actor and actress races.

And over the past few years, since the Oscars shortened the awards calendar by moving their show date to late February, SAG and Oscar voters have agreed on 10 of 12 races.

The two exceptions are significant. Guild voters preferred Paul Giamatti ("Cinderella Man") to George Clooney ("Syriana") as best supporting actor last year. Giamatti is more of a reflection of the work-a-day actor who belongs to the guild and votes on its awards. And in 2003, guild voters preferred Johnny Depp ("Pirates of the Caribbean") to Sean Penn ("Mystic River"), thus endorsing that favorite actors' adage: "Doing drama is easy -- comedy is hard."

Over in the TV races, kudos watchers wonder how many stars of the newest TV series will make the cut? Usually, few do, and this year that seems more likely than ever.

Even Golden Globe voters, who love to spotlight rookies, chose only a few among their recent nominees: Michael C. Hall ("Dexter"), Alex Baldwin ("30 Rock"), and America Ferrera ("Ugly Betty"). All three will probably be noticed by guild voters, along with one or more stars of "Brothers and Sisters" (two-time Oscar winner Sally Field seems like a safe bet). But that could be about all the newcomers who crack this year's field.

In the comedy categories, "Will & Grace" has its final year of eligibility at SAG, so expect more honors for Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally. Strangely, the guild combines lead and supporting races in the TV categories, but separates them on the film side. Even though Hayes and Mullally compete in the supporting slots at the Emmys and the Globes, they usually pop up in the combo category at SAG -- where they've each won several times.

SAG noms will be unveiled at 6:05 a.m. PT on Thursday in the Silver Screen Theater at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles. The press conference will be telecast live on TNT, E! and streamed live on TNT.tv and TBS.com.

All of the guild's 120,000 national members are eligible to cast ballots to determine winners, but SAG does not reveal how many actually do. Final decisions will be revealed at the awards ceremony, which will be held at the Shrine Auditorium on Jan. 28 and telecast live simultaneously on TNT and TBS at 8 p.m. ET and PT.