Screen Actors Guild (SAG) nomination predictions: Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Erik Anderson January 3, 2022

Kodi Smit–McPhee (The Power of the Dog) probably didn’t see himself going into this season as being the overwhelming critics’ favorite and neither did pundits, but he is and here we are. He’s a lock here but the real question is, can his co–star Jesse Plemons finally show up and give us a Sam Rockwell/Woody Harrelson type of race?

Speaking of dual/dueling co–stars, could the Belfast boys Ciarán Hinds and Jamie Dornan repeat their dual success at the Golden Globes and Critics Choice and find themselves nominated side by side by SAG too? It’s very possible, I think it could happen. I still maintain that Dornan is this year’s most likely candidate to hit every precursor and then get snubbed at the Oscars. Not in the same way that Taron Egerton or Daniel Brühl did but more like Richard Gere in Chicago.

Troy Kotsur (CODA) has been one of the season’s brightest and best surprises to becoming a real contender, having won a handful of critics’ prizes already and scooping up GG and CCA nods. He’s the film’s heart, even more than its lead or Best Actress Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, who has strangely been mostly absent in the awards race so far.

Ben Affleck has never been nominated for an individual SAG award, but he’s been in three films that landed Cast nods, including two that won (Shakespeare in Love, Argo) and then also went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars. His surprise nomination at the Golden Globes for George Clooney’s The Tender Bar raised my eyebrow, enough to think he could score a nomination here, as well. 2021 was kind of a big year for Affleck, both in his personal and professional life. He split from girlfriend Ana de Armas and the rebounded with Dunkin’ Donuts and his ‘Bennifer’ ex Jennifer Lopez in one of the year’s wildest throwbacks of early 2000s nostalgia. But he also hit highs with two supporting performances in films: in the aforementioned The Tender Bar, where he plays a wise and rascally uncle, but even more so for The Last Duel, playing Count Pierre d’Alençon, a deliciously hedonistic drunk and horny 14^th century lord with bleached blonde hair and a blonde goatee right out of a 2000s band like Smash Mouth. Critics went to bat for the former Batman with his comeback The Way Back, but the industry didn’t bite. I think they might this time.

Last year, SAG went 3/5 with Oscar with Chadwick Boseman in Da 5 Bloods and Jared Leto in The Little Things out for Paul Raci in for Sound of Metal and LaKeith Stanfield for Judas and the Black Messiah.

Here are my predictions for Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture. Nominations will be announced January 12.

Ben Affleck – The Tender Bar
Jamie Dornan – Belfast
Troy Kotsur – CODA
Ciarán Hinds – Belfast
Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power of the Dog

Spoilers: Jared Leto – House of Gucci, Jesse Plemons – The Power of the Dog, J.K. Simmons – Being the Ricardos

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.