Oscars 2016: Best Supporting Actor – SAG Awards and Golden Globes rule when it comes to a winner

While on a suddenly aborted podcast with Erik Anderson and Jeff Wells, we began talking about Best Supporting actor. “There are about ten,” Anderson said, before agreeing that this was a nearly impossible year to predict. Indeed, there is much confusion in the category overall. There are several narratives that could play out and no one really knows what those narratives will be or who will get in.

Here are a couple of things to know.

1. The SAG Awards trumps the Globes overall. There have only been two years in all of SAG Awards/Oscar history where there were more than two names, three at the most, that received Supporting Actor nominations from SAG-AFTRA and didn’t get corresponding nominations at the Oscars. The norm is only one mismatch, sometimes two, hardly ever three.
2. It sometimes happens that a stray name may get in without a SAG Awards or a Globe nomination either one, as seen with Jonah Hill for Wolf of Wall Street, Michael Shannon for Revolutionary Road, Max Von Sydow for Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close, Alan Alda for The Aviator, William Hurt for A History of Violence, Djimon Hounsou, In America. But never more than two.
3. It’s very rare (only once since 2002) that a supporting actor can be nominated by both SAG-AFTRA and the HFPA and then fail to get an Oscar nomination.
4. Being featured in a Best Picture winner does not help get you from a SAG Awards nomination to a Supporting Actor Oscar: Four times since 2002 a nominee from a Best Picture winner did not go on to get an Oscar nomination even though their film won Best Picture: Dev Patel for Slumdog Millionaire, Tommy Lee Jones for No Country for Old Men, Leonardo DiCaprio for The Departed (although he did get a Best Actor nod), Don Cheadle, Crash.
5. Folding in the Critic Choice does not help us figure out which actor might get in without either a Globe or SAG Awards nomination.
6. The most important rule of all: in all of SAG Awards/Oscar history no contender has ever won the Oscar without a SAG Awards or a Globe nomination (but usually SAG Awards) in the Supporting Actor category. <—this is what I call the biggest bummer of all because it closes a lot of doors.

What this research has told me is that four out of five, very likely, from the SAG Awards’ list will get in. Probably a sure thing that maybe both contenders (and there are only two) who got nominations from both SAG Awards and Globe probably get in but it’s not a guaranteed thing. It’s kind of rare that all five SAG Awards nominees will get in, so I’m not expecting all five to get in at the Oscars, though it’s certainly possible.

Here are the most likely names to get nominated for Supporting Actor:

Supporting Actor
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
Jacob Tremblay, Room
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
Michael Keaton, Spotlight
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Benicio Del Toro, Sicario
Robert DeNiro, Joy
Edgar Ramirez, Joy
Harvey Keitel, Youth
Jeff Daniels, Steve Jobs
Jason Segel, The End of the Tour

Knowing what I know about SAG-AFTRA, I’d have to go with these five as the most prominent, and thus far most likely to get in:

Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
Jacob Tremblay, Room
Chritian Bale, Big Short

Add to that, those actors who got Globe nominations but didn’t get SAG Awards nominations:

Sylvester Stallone
Paul Dano

Then, there are the other actors who have neither SAG Awards or Globe nominations but who have made an impact with critics award wins:

Michael Keaton, Spotlight (NYFCC win, Lead Actor)
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Tom Hardy, The Revenant

But that is not how I will ultimately predict, probably. It’s hard for me to give up Paul Dano and it’s equally hard to give up Sylvester Stallone. There’s a pretty good precedent for names that got into the Golden Globes but not the SAG Awards to get in for Oscar, and that helps the odds for Dano or Stallone. Still, if either or both get in, whom do they replace?

When in doubt, stick to SAG Awards minus one or two at the most. Do any of the SAG-AFTRA names seem weak to you? They certainly don’t to me. But this is a wide open year with a lot of competition across all of the categories for a change. The bottom line is that anything can happen in this or any other category. It just comes down to how many stat breakers you’re willing to take a risk on.

When it comes to finding  a winner, in all of SAG Awards history only one contender (Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained) has won without a SAG Awards nomination. Having both precursors helps the most but a contender can win with just a SAG Awards, and less likely, just a Globe nom. But still, we’re talking about a situation where a contender really can’t win without one or the other, preferably both.

Landing both this year are Mark Rylance, Michael Shannon, Idris Elba.  Just SAG: Jacob Tremblay and Christian Bale. Just Globe: Sylvester Stallone and Paul Dano.

Now that I’ve done this chart building, it’s time to put it all together from most likely to least likely for the win:

1. Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
2. Jacob Tremblay, Room
3. Paul Dano, Love & Mercy
4. Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
5. Christian Bale, The Big Short
6. Tom Hardy, The Revenant
7. Sylvester Stallone, Creed
8. Michael Shannon, 99 Homes
9. Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
10. Michael Keaton, Spotlight
11. Benicio Del Toro, Sicario
12. Harvey Keitel, Youth

That’s as close to a prediction as I can get.  Any of the top frontrunners could win, honestly, but it helps to have both SAG Awards and Globe nomination.

Screen Actors Guild Official Site

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