Emily Blunt (‘Oppenheimer’) will get an Oscars boost from SAG Awards

Emily Blunt hasn’t felt the embrace of the Academy Awards just yet, having missed out on a nomination on several occasions. However, she has been recognized by her peers with several bids at the SAG Awards

She first contended at SAG in 2017 for Best Actress for “The Girl on the Train.” She lost that race to Emma Stone for “La La Land” but returned to the SAG Awards ceremony in 2019 when she reaped two nominations. The first was again for Best Actress, this time for “Mary Poppins Returns.” She lost to Glenn Close for “The Wife” but Blunt won her second race that year — Best Supporting Actress for “A Quiet Place,” which was directed by her husband John Krasinski. Blunt was then nominated again earlier this year, this time for Best TV Movie/Limited Series Actress for “The English.” Jessica Chastain won that category for “George & Tammy.”

That’s four SAG nominations and one win, including two bids in one year. Clearly, SAG voters like her. That love hasn’t yet translated to the Academy Awards, an awards group she has been snubbed by despite competitive performances in the aforementioned trio of “The Girl on the Train,” “Mary Poppins Returns,” and “A Quiet Place” as well as “The Devil Wears Prada” and “The Young Victoria.” The stars could align, however, with Christopher Nolan‘s Universal movie “Oppenheimer.” The biopic depicts Cillian Murphy‘s titular J. Robert Oppenheimer creating the atomic bomb while Blunt plays his wife, Kitty.

Blunt’s role could have been limited to the far-too-overused trope of “long-suffering wife” but Blunt elevates the role with a fierce performance, highlighted in a couple of vital scenes including her grilling at the hands of Jason Clarke‘s attorney. It’s a wonderful performance, as critics have noted.

Christian Holub (EW) noted: “Emily Blunt’s Kitty Oppenheimer is defiantly alive, in spite of the worldwide crises of the ’30s and ’40s. Far from the archetype of a ‘devoted wife,’ Kitty is not shy about expressing her frustrations with motherhood or her dissatisfaction with politics. Blunt is a great partner for Murphy in their scenes together: bringing him down to Earth when he’s off in the clouds, reminding him to fight when he seems content to let history wash over him.”

Tomris Laffly (The Wrap) observed: “The other is a subtly scene-stealing Emily Blunt in the role of Oppenheimer’s unconventional wife Kitty. Once a Bay Area socialite who later refuses to be bogged down by her new domestic role in Los Alamos, Blunt’s Kitty single-handedly runs away with perhaps the most memorable security clearance hearing scene in the movie.”

And Peter Travers (ABC News) opined: “Kudos to Blunt for building the role with a fierce independence as Kitty defended Oppy from the political gamesmanship that plagued him.”

As such, Blunt could be on the path to an Oscar nomination at long last. But let’s not jump the gun just yet. Blunt will have to secure nominations at various precursors before she can count her chickens just yet. The good news is, she’s just landed two nominations at major precursors — Best Supporting Actress at both the Critics’ Choice Awards and the Golden Globes. That’s two down but it is SAG that could be the platform that launches Blunt towards an Oscar nomination or even a potential win.

Currently, Da’Vine Joy Randolph is in first place for “The Holdovers” while Danielle Brooks (“The Color Purple”) is in second and Blunt is in third. Jodie Foster (“Nyad”) and Viola Davis (“Air”) are our two other predicted nominees in this category. However, looking back at past SAG winners in this category suggests that Blunt could pull ahead. Randolph and Brooks are two up-and-coming stars making names for themselves in breakout films. This is a profile of actress that is sometimes awarded a win in this category at SAG, such as Ariana Debose (“West Side Story”) and Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”).

However, the guild often rewards more established actresses with A-list names and plenty of big projects behind them, such as Jamie Lee Curtis (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”), Blunt herself (“A Quiet Place”), Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”), Viola Davis (“Fences”), Patricia Arquette (“Boyhood”), Anne Hathaway (“Les Misérables”), and Melissa Leo (“The Fighter”).

Out of all these winners, by the way, Blunt is the only one who didn’t go on to win the Oscar, too. However, none of those names had previously won an Oscar before. Dern, Davis, Hathaway, and Leo had all been nominated for Oscars before their respective SAG wins but they hadn’t won while Curtis, Blunt, Janney, and Arquette had never been nominated before their SAG wins.

SAG voters like handing out awards in this category to respected actresses who have been on the precipice of Oscar love but have never been truly embraced by the academy. It is the SAG’s love, then, that has set these actresses on their way to Oscar-winning status. Blunt could, this time, be the beneficiary of that trend.

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