Few real-life stories are as inspiring as that of Diana Nyad, the sports journalist, motivational speaker, and athlete who returned to the world of competitive long-distance swimming in her 60s after decades away from the sport — and few actors could have captured her indomitable spirit in the same way as Annette Bening. The veteran actor and four-time Oscar nominee earned a Screen Actors Guild nomination in the Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role category for her work in the film, which marks the first narrative feature from directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo, The Rescue). Nominated alongside Bening was co-star Jodie Foster, who was recognized with a nomination in the Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role category for her portrayal of Bonnie Stoll, the former racquetball star who became Nyad’s coach and steadfast confidante. “We realize we have these kind of cages we’ve built for ourselves in our brains about what we can do and what we can’t do,” says Bening of what playing Diana meant to her. “We get so used to that that we forget that they’re even there, but they are. What do we give ourselves permission to do in our lives?”

With his biographical drama about the life of Bayard Rustin, director George C. Wolfe hoped to shed light on the extraordinary accomplishments of the unsung civil rights activist and organizer of the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The film’s star, Colman Domingo, was nominated for his career-defining turn in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role category. Domingo told Queue in his Issue 14 cover story that he felt a personal responsibility to portray Rustin truthfully — noting that it was destiny that brought him the role. “I feel like Bayard has been on my shoulder for years, saying, ‘You’re the one to tell my story,’” he said.

Lee Sung Jin’s mesmerizing breakout series BEEF continues to captivate — with three SAG Award nominations, including Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series. Steven Yeun and Ali Wong earned nods in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor and Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series categories, respectively, for their astonishing performances as Danny Cho and Amy Lau, two strangers who collide in a Southern California hardware-store parking lot, igniting ten episodes of unpredictable, irresistible drama. Of his stars, Lee says, “Both [Ali and Steven] have a very good intuition and radar for what’s truthful. They’re very much part of the whole process.”

The sixth season of The Crown brings Peter Morgan’s beloved royal drama to an end. The Screen Actors Guild bestowed the final season with two nominations, including Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series — which The Crown won in both 2019 and 2020. For her devastating performance as Princess Diana in the early days of motherhood and during her highly publicized splintering from the royal family, Elizabeth Debicki earned a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. “There have been so many tumultuous and painful bits of storytelling that I’ve had to do,” the actor says. “But I also find the role so vivid, and there’s so much beauty there, and so much love and desire to connect to people. I think, to speak of the real Princess Diana, she felt so real and the way that she loved people and people loved her was just so extraordinary. Trying to create that has been really an amazing experience.”

Last spring, the world devoured The Diplomat at the breakneck speed at which its cast delivers razor-sharp dialogue. For her starring performance as American diplomat Kate Wyler in Debora Cahn’s gripping London-set political drama, Keri Russell earned a nomination for Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series. “I hadn’t done a series in many, many years — and I didn’t think I’d ever do one again, but this was just too fun to pass up,” Russell says. “I read Debora Cahn’s script, and I just thought it was so funny and sharp and messy and enjoyable, and I couldn’t say no.”

Based on Patrick Radden Keefe’s New Yorker article, “The Family That Built an Empire of Pain,” and Barry Meier’s book, Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic, director Peter Berg’s Painkiller chronicles the heartbreaking opioid crisis through the eyes of the people it’s most affected, including Uzo Aduba’s character, Edie Flowers, an amalgam of real-life lawyers involved in the Sackler case, who serves as the series’ moral barometer. “This is a character [who comes] from the same place as the American people, with the same blindness, ignorance, lack of knowledge of the wave, this tsunami, that is about to land on our shores. She really is us,” Aduba says. For her performance, she was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series.