Cillian Murphy nominated for SAG Award as Barry Keoghan snubbed

Murphy is favorite to take home best actor for his work in Oppenheimer

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Cillian Murphy accepts the award for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama for Oppenheimer at the 81st Golden Globe Awards(Image: Rich Polk/Golden Globes 2024/Golden Globes 2024 via Getty Images)

Cillian Murphy has been nominated for best actor at next month’s Screen Actors Guild Awards. The Irishman is, unsurprisingly, up for his role in Oppenheimer, last year’s box office blow out.

The news comes just days after Murphy went home with the Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama. The Co Cork native is favorite to dominate the category again at the SAG Awards, as well as at the upcoming Academy Awards, though nominations for those have not yet been announced.

Murphy is up against Bradley Cooper, Colman Domingo, Paul Giamatti, and Jeffrey Wright for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the SAG Awards.

Noticeably absent from the list is Dublin actor Barry Keoghan, who was nominated for a Golden Globe alongside Murphy for his hit movie Saltburn. Keoghan’s role as Oliver, a disgruntled Oxford student who rips apart a wealthy family, has been praised by critics; even ones that weren’t fans of the film itself.

The nominations for the SAG Awards are picked by members of the SAG-AFTRA guild, the world’s largest labor union representing performers, broadcasters and recording artists. SAG-AFTRA is made up of two unions that merged in 2012: the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and it has over 165,000 members.

Only 5,000 of them, who are randomly chosen, make up the nominating committees for the awards. Last year they put Keoghan up for best supporting male actor for The Banshees of Inisherin. This year’s committee clearly rated other performances higher than Keoghan’s this year; but there is still hope for the Oscars.

The SAG Awards are generally seen as an honor in the film industry. They’re the only accolades for actors chosen entirely by their peers, and they’re historically seen as a predictor for the Academy Awards.

But the Oscars are chosen by a range of industry professionals and almost 9,500 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are eligible to vote. The committee can sometimes overlap with the SAG voters, but the results aren’t always the same.

Irish actor Paul Mescal was nominated for best actor at the Academy Awards last year even though he failed to gain a SAG nomination. The lists also differed in other ways.

The nominations for the 96th Academy Awards will be announced on January 23, with Murphy no doubt popping up the list. Hopefully, Keoghan might be there too. This year’s SAG Awards will air on February 23 at 8pm ET.