SAG Winner Predictions: Best Female Actor in a Leading Role

The competition: Amy Adams’ troubled mother (Hillbilly Elegy), Viola Davis’ talented performer (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Vanessa Kirby’s grieving mother (Pieces of a Woman), Frances McDormand’s exploring nomad (Nomadland), and Carey Mulligan’s revenge-seeker (Promising Young Woman).

For your information: Adams has six previous individual nominations, most recently double bids for “Sharp Objects” and “Vice” in 2018, plus three ensemble bids, one of which she won, in 2013 for “American Hustle.” Davis has won four individual prizes, for “The Help” in 2011, “How to Get Away with Murder” in 2014 and 2015, and “Fences” in 2016. She won the ensemble prize for the first of those and earned another individual nod and two more ensemble bids. Kirby was previously nominated twice as part of the cast of “The Crown.” McDormand has won three individual prizes, for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” in 2017, “Olive Kitteridge” in 2014, and “Fargo” in 1996. She won the ensemble prize for the first of those and earned another two individual nods and one more ensemble bid. Mulligan was nominated in 2009 for “An Education” both individually and as part of the ensemble and as part of the “Mudbound” cast in 2017. All but Adams are nominated for the corresponding Oscar, and the other four all lost to Andra Day at the Golden Globes. Mulligan triumphed at the Critics Choice Awards. All but seven times since the SAG Awards’ inception in 1994, the winner of this award has gone on to win the corresponding Oscar.

Who should win? Mulligan is my clear favorite from this very good list.

Who will win? I’m betting tentatively on Mulligan over McDormand and Davis.