Guys, I'm a little worried about Leonard DiCaprio. The first time I saw the full trailer for the Alejandro Iñárritu survival thriller The Revenant , all I could think was, "Someone please give this man an Oscar before he hurts himself." From teen heartthrob to acclaimed leading man, DiCaprio has proven himself to be a fearless actor who's capable of making unexpected choices. Surely, he saw more in the role of fur trapper and real-life folk hero Hugh Glass than an opportunity to court votes come awards season. But at the same time, it's near impossible to believe that that Leonardo DiCaprio has yet to win an Oscar. On Wednesday morning, the actor received a 2016 Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance By A Male Actor In A Leading Role for his work on this film. Is that nod a clue that 2016 will finally be DiCaprio's year at the Academy Awards?
Coming early in awards season, the SAGs can be a reliable indicator of what's to come as far as acting trophies are concerned. The voting bodies for each major industry award show differs, which is why nominations don't repeat directly from ceremony to ceremony. But if DiCaprio wants to get a little cocky at this moment, it's warranted. I compared the last 15 years of SAG Lead Actor award winners to the same category at the Oscars, and the correlation is high. I know, DiCaprio only has the SAG nomination so far. But if he accepts that trophy at the ceremony on Jan. 30, he may want to start carving out some shelf space for an Oscar.
In the past 15 years, the SAG Lead Actor and the Oscar Best Actor have gone to the same performer 11 times. Eddie Redmayne, Matthew McConaughey, Jean Dujardin, Colin Firth, Jeff Bridges, Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, Jamie Foxx, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Daniel Day Lewis (times two) all swept both awards. The only Best Actor Oscar recipients who went home from the SAGs empty handed were Russell Crowe for Gladiator, Denzel Washington for Training Day, Adrien Brody for The Piano, and Sean Penn for Mystic River. You may notice that those films were all released on the earlier end of the time period I analyzed, meaning that the SAGs have become a more accurate Oscar predictor in the past decade than they'd been before.
More good news for DiCaprio is that every single Best Actor Oscar winner of the past 15 years was at least nominated for the Screen Actors Guild honor too. So though awards season does have the capacity to surprise even the most meticulous odds-makers, this SAG nod is a majorly encouraging milestone in DiCaprio's road to potential Oscar glory. And maybe I want it more for him than he wants it for himself, but wouldn't it be nice for the actor to have a tangible reward for those brutal weeks filming in the Canadian wilderness? He could even share it with the bear.
Images: 20th Century Fox; Giphy (2)
