Two years ago, “Succession” earned all of its first three Best TV Drama Actor SAG Award nominations at once and thus made history as the first series to take up that many slots in one of said category’s annual lineups. Unfortunately, Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, and Jeremy Strong all ended up losing that contest to Lee Jung-jae (“Squid Game”), but each now has a final chance at redemption. In fact, Gold Derby’s SAG Awards odds indicate that the concluded HBO program is on the verge of racking up an unprecedented four individual male bids in 2024, with a five-slot sweep also well within the realm of possibility.
More than three-quarters of our SAG Awards predictors are backing Culkin in this year’s drama actor race, while his on-screen sister, Sarah Snook, has even more support in the corresponding female category. Our current male top five further includes Strong as well as potential first-time solo contender Matthew Macfadyen, who is also widely expected to achieve a second consecutive Emmy win for “Succession” this winter. Pedro Pascal (“The Last of Us”) and Billy Crudup (“The Morning Show”) are keeping Cox in sixth place, but he could easily wind up seizing one of their prime positions, as could late-stage “Succession” regular Alexander Skarsgård, who is running outside of the top 10 but has a high profile due to his 2018 solo SAG Award win for “Big Little Lies.”
At this point, eight different three-way costar battles have occurred within five of the six individual small screen SAG Award categories, with the odd one out being Best TV Comedy Actress. The 2022 “Succession” case was the second to not lead to a win for any of the three involved actors, following Tony Shalhoub’s 2004 comedic victory for “Monk” against “Everybody Loves Raymond” trio Peter Boyle, Brad Garrett, and Ray Romano. Indeed, the only male instance that has not resulted in triple losses involved Al Pacino clinching the 2004 Best TV Movie/Limited Series Actor trophy over his “Angels in America” cast mates, Justin Kirk and Jeffrey Wright.
“Angels in America” also produced three female nominations for Mary-Louise Parker, Emma Thompson, and eventual winner Meryl Streep. Since then, the same category has seen Claire Danes and Nicole Kidman respectively take the 2011 and 2018 prizes by defeating their costars in “Temple Grandin” (Catherine O’Hara and Julia Ormond) and “Big Little Lies” (Laura Dern and Reese Witherspoon). The remaining two general cases concerned drama series actresses, with Edie Falco winning in 2000 for “The Sopranos” against Lorraine Bracco and Nancy Marchand and Gillian Anderson prevailing in 2021 for “The Crown” over Olivia Colman and Emma Corrin.
Although holding a majority didn’t work for the “Succession” actors in 2022, this being their farewell outing makes a massive difference, especially considering the fact that any of them would follow Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones”) and Jason Bateman (“Ozark”) as their category’s third final-season victor in five years. Of course, the easiest way for the show to win would be for its men to completely dominate their lineup, but the team will most likely have to face the complications that will arise from missing one or two slots. Still, a program is bound to score four (or even five) same-year, same-category SAG Award nominations someday, and it’s more than reasonable to believe that day is just a few weeks away.
PREDICT the 2024 SAG Awards nominees through January 10
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