'Into the Wild' dominates SAG awards

"Into the Wild," Sean Penn's harrowing drama about Christopher McCandless, a young man who traveled the country after graduating from college only to perish in Alaska, dominated the 14th annual Screen Actors Guild Award nominations announced this morning.

The film was nominated for four SAG awards -- best actor, Emile Hirsch; supporting male actor, Hal Holbrook; supporting female actor, Catherine Keener; and best ensemble.

The actors in "Into the Wild" were shut out in the Golden Globe nominations a week ago.

The gripping legal thriller "Michael Clayton" and the dark contemporary western "No Country for Old Men" each received three nominations.

"Michael Clayton" picked up nominations for best male actor, George Clooney; supporting male actor, Tom Wilkinson; and supporting female actor, Tilda Swinton. "No Country for Old Men," the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, received nominations for best ensemble and best supporting actor for Javier Bardem and Tommy Lee Jones.

Notably missing from the list of nominees were the Stephen Sondheim musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," which received four Golden Globe nominations last week, and the epic romance "Atonement," which dominated the Globe nominations with seven.

Vying with Clooney and Hirsch for best male actor in a motion picture are Daniel Day-Lewis as the greedy oil kingpin in "There Will Be Blood," Ryan Gosling as a shy young man with an unusual girlfriend in "Lars and the Real Girl" and Viggo Mortensen as a Russian mobster living in London in "Eastern Promises." Clooney was named best actor by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, and Day-Lewis received best actor honors from both the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. and the New York Film Critics Circle.

Nominees for best female actor in a motion picture are Cate Blanchett for "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," Julie Christie as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's in "Away From Her," Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf, France's Little Sparrow, in "La Vie En Rose," Angelina Jolie as journalist and widow Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart" and Ellen Page as an acerbic pregnant teenager in "Juno." Christie was named best actress by the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle, while the Los Angeles Film Critic Assn. picked Cotillard.

Rounding out the supporting actor nominees are Casey Affleck, in contention for the western "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," along with Bardem, Holbrook, Jones and Wilkinson.

Joining Keener and Swinton in the supporting female actor category are Blanchett in "I'm Not There," the 83-year-old Ruby Dee in "American Gangster" and Amy Ryan for "Gone Baby Gone."

Also in the mix for ensemble cast recognition are "American Gangster," "Hairspray" and "3:10 to Yuma."

On the television side, Michael Keaton ("The Company"), Kevin Kline ("As You Like It"), Oliver Platt ("The Bronx Is Burning"), Sam Shepard ("Ruffian") and John Turturro ("The Bronx Is Burning") earned SAG nominations for outstanding performance by a male actor in a TV movie or miniseries.

Because of a tie, there are six nominees for female actor in a TV miniseries or movie. The crowded group consists of Ellen Burstyn for "Mitch Albom's For One More Day," Debra Messing for "The Starter Wife," Anna Paquin for "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," Vanessa Redgrave for "The Fever" and Gena Rowlands for "What If God Were the Sun?"

Though "The Sopranos" was virtually ignored last week at the Golden Globe nominations, the acclaimed mob series garnered nods for outstanding performance by a male actor in drama series, James Gandolfini; female actor in a drama series, Edie Falco; and outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series.