Australians have featured strongly in the 2012 Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, which included Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Russell Crowe and Jacki Weaver.
Hugh Jackman's performance as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables was recognised with a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role and Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture (which also included Russell Crowe). It is the first time that the Screen Actors Guild has recognised Jackman's performances which have included films such as X-Men, Australia, Deception and The Prestige.
Also up for best male lead are Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), John Hawkes (The Sessions), Denzel Washington (Flight). The other outstanding cast nominations were for Argo, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook.
Les Misérables, directed by Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), received the equal highest number of nominations in total (four) alongside Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook. Jacki Weaver, whose Hollywood career has taken off after her Oscar-nominated performance in 2010 crime drama Animal Kingdom, was also nominated as part of the cast of Silver Linings (Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture).
Nicole Kidman was also nominated twice for her performances in The Paperboy (Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role) and Hemingway & Gellhorn (Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries).
Naomi Watts received a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for The Impossible. She is up against Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Marion Cotillard (Rust And Bone), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) and Helen Mirren (Hitchcock).
The Sessions, which was directed and produced by the Australian husband-wife team of Ben Lewin and Judi Levine, received two nominations in total with Helen Hunt's performance as a sex surrogate (Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role) also recognised alongside John Hawkes' performance as a man in an iron lung.
The full list of nominations can be found at SAG.