Small-town dramedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri&nbsp;led the 2018 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) nominations on Wednesday in a list that shut out veterans Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis as well as Steven Spielberg`s press freedom movie The Post. 
 
Instead, SAG members recognised performers in independent films that focused on women and people of colour, throwing open the race for the Oscars in March. 
 
&quot;There`s not enough stories told by people of colour and with people of colour in the cast,&quot; Kumail Nanjiani, co-writer and star of interracial romance nominee The Big Sick,&quot; told Reuters.&nbsp; 
 
&quot;We`re learning that audiences want to see those stories, and it`s not just about seeing themselves on screen, these are financially viable movies as well,&quot; he added.&nbsp; 
 
The SAG awards are indicators of likely Oscar success because actors form the largest group of voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. No film in 22 years has won best picture at the Oscars without being nominated for SAG`s top prize of best movie ensemble. 
 
On Wednesday, Three Billboards&nbsp;got a leading four nods, including best movie ensemble. 
 
The black comedy about an angry woman, played by best actress nominee Frances McDormand, seeking vengeance for her murdered daughter will compete with The Big Sick,&quot; racial thriller Get Out, the mother-daughter comedy Lady Bird&nbsp;and period race drama Mudbound. 
 
Wednesday`s list was at odds with the Golden Globe nominations on Monday, where fantasy romance The Shape of Water&nbsp;earned a leading seven nods, followed by The Post,&nbsp;starring Streep and Tom Hanks, with six. 
The SAG winners will be announced in Los Angeles on Jan. 21, two days before Oscar nominations. 
 
British actor Daniel Day-Lewis, a triple Oscar winner who announced his retirement from acting earlier this year, also failed to make the cut with SAG voters, along with his upcoming and final movie Phantom Thread.&quot;&nbsp; 
British World War Two movie Dunkirk, which had been seen as a big player at the Oscars, was also ignored by SAG voters.

Instead, the best actor lineup recognised relative newcomers like Timothee Chalamet, 21, for gay romance Call Me By Your Name,&nbsp;and Daniel Kaluuya for Get Out.&nbsp;They will compete with James Franco for comedy The Disaster Artist, Gary Oldman for his role as British wartime leader Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour,&nbsp;and Denzel Washington for Roman J. Israel, Esq. 
 
Streep missed out in the best actress lineup that nominated Judi Dench for royal drama Victoria and Abdul, Sally Hawkins as a mute cleaner in The Shape of Water,&nbsp;Australian Margot Robbie for ice-skating mockumentary I, Tonya,&nbsp;and Saoirse Ronan for Lady Bird. 
 
SAG also hands out awards for television, with Big Little Lies,&nbsp;Stranger Things&nbsp;and female wrestling series Glow&nbsp;picking up four nominations each. 
 
The Crown, Game of Thrones, The Handmaid`s Tale, Stranger Things,&nbsp;and This is Us,&nbsp;will compete for best TV drama ensemble. The TV comedy best ensemble race will comprise black-ish, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Glow, Orange is the New Black, and Veep. 
 
Twentieth Century Fox and its independent film unit Fox Searchlight shared a leading nine nominations for movies, while Netflix was the leading network for television programs with 19 nods, followed by HBO.&nbsp;

SAG members recognised performers in independent films that focused on women and people of colour, throwing open the race for the Oscars in March.

Small-town dramedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri led the 2018 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) nominations on Wednesday in a list that shut out veterans Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis as well as Steven Spielberg`s press freedom movie The Post. Instead, SAG members recognised performers in independent films that focused on women and people of colour, throwing open the race for the Oscars in March. "There`s not enough stories told by people of colour and with people of colour in the cast," Kumail Nanjiani, co-writer and star of interracial romance nominee The Big Sick," told Reuters. "We`re learning that audiences want to see those stories, and it`s not just about seeing themselves on screen, these are financially viable movies as well," he added. The SAG awards are indicators of likely Oscar success because actors form the largest group of voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. No film in 22 years has won best picture at the Oscars without being nominated for SAG`s top prize of best movie ensemble. On Wednesday, Three Billboards got a leading four nods, including best movie ensemble. The black comedy about an angry woman, played by best actress nominee Frances McDormand, seeking vengeance for her murdered daughter will compete with The Big Sick," racial thriller Get Out, the mother-daughter comedy Lady Bird and period race drama Mudbound. Wednesday`s list was at odds with the Golden Globe nominations on Monday, where fantasy romance The Shape of Water earned a leading seven nods, followed by The Post, starring Streep and Tom Hanks, with six. The SAG winners will be announced in Los Angeles on Jan. 21, two days before Oscar nominations. British actor Daniel Day-Lewis, a triple Oscar winner who announced his retirement from acting earlier this year, also failed to make the cut with SAG voters, along with his upcoming and final movie Phantom Thread." British World War Two movie Dunkirk, which had been seen as a big player at the Oscars, was also ignored by SAG voters. Instead, the best actor lineup recognised relative newcomers like Timothee Chalamet, 21, for gay romance Call Me By Your Name, and Daniel Kaluuya for Get Out. They will compete with James Franco for comedy The Disaster Artist, Gary Oldman for his role as British wartime leader Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, and Denzel Washington for Roman J. Israel, Esq. Streep missed out in the best actress lineup that nominated Judi Dench for royal drama Victoria and Abdul, Sally Hawkins as a mute cleaner in The Shape of Water, Australian Margot Robbie for ice-skating mockumentary I, Tonya, and Saoirse Ronan for Lady Bird. SAG also hands out awards for television, with Big Little Lies, Stranger Things and female wrestling series Glow picking up four nominations each. The Crown, Game of Thrones, The Handmaid`s Tale, Stranger Things, and This is Us, will compete for best TV drama ensemble. The TV comedy best ensemble race will comprise black-ish, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Glow, Orange is the New Black, and Veep. Twentieth Century Fox and its independent film unit Fox Searchlight shared a leading nine nominations for movies, while Netflix was the leading network for television programs with 19 nods, followed by HBO.

SAG nominations focus on indie movies, snub Streep and Day-Lewis

When Pakistani actor Kumail Nanjiani and his American wife Emily Gordon wrote a film about the surreal circumstances that brought them together, little did they expect that their love story would be put under a political spotlight.

&quot;The Big Sick&quot; explores Nanjiani&#39;s cultural conflict as a Pakistani Muslim comedian in a post-9/11 America. His life is further complicated when he falls in love with Gordon, played by Zoe Kazan, and goes against his family&#39;s wishes that he marry a Pakistani woman.

The film, out in limited US&nbsp;release on Friday, is &quot;coming out at a time when there&#39;s a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment, there&#39;s a lot of Islamophobia,&quot; Nanjiani said in an interview.

&quot;By depicting a Muslim family as like normal people, that&#39;s its big political statement,&quot; said Nanjiani, who is also the first Pakistani leading man in a Hollywood romantic comedy.

The movie arrives after US&nbsp;President Donald Trump&#39;s call during his 2016 election campaign for a &quot;total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States&quot;. Now in the White House, Trump is seeking to ban travellers from six Muslim-majority countries in a case awaiting a US&nbsp;Supreme Court decision.

Nanjiani, 39, best known for playing snarky programmer Dinesh in HBO&#39;s comedy &quot;Silicon Valley,&quot; and Gordon said they did not predict the film would wade into a hot-button issue.

&quot;It obviously feels so weirdly timely but it also does have this expectation on it that it really wasn&#39;t built for,&quot; Nanjiani said. &quot;Really, it&#39;s just a love story.&quot;

In &quot;The Big Sick,&quot; Nanjiani&#39;s family struggle with his decision to pursue comedy as they try to arrange a suitable marriage, while he secretly dates the smart, nerdy Emily.

Nanjiani&#39;s world is upended when Emily falls into a coma with an undiagnosed illness and he keeps a bedside vigil alongside her parents.

&quot;I think that Kumail is trying to show how similar their lives are to people who already live here in some respects. They&#39;re looking for love and they&#39;re trying to be happy and they&#39;re also dealing with their culture,&quot; Judd Apatow, the film&#39;s producer said.

In one scene, Nanjiani is heckled during his stand-up comedy routine by a man calling him a terrorist. In another, Ray Romano, who plays Gordon&#39;s father, asks Kumail about his stance on the September&nbsp;11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

&quot;Anti. It was a tragedy,&quot; Nanjiani said, before quipping, &quot;I mean, we lost 19 of our best guys&quot;.

&quot;The Big Sick&quot; arrives as Hollywood films such as &quot;Get Out&quot; and &quot;Wonder Woman&quot; are starting to break the white, male-dominated movie mold and show that audiences will pay to see films with minority leads.

&quot;It&#39;s important for kids to see themselves in the stuff they watch. But more than that, I think it&#39;s important that people from different points of view are behind the camera telling the stories, writing them, directing them,&quot; Nanjiani said.

'By depicting a Muslim family as like normal people, that's its big political statement,' said Nanjiani, the first Pakistani leading man in a Hollywood rom com

When Pakistani actor Kumail Nanjiani and his American wife Emily Gordon wrote a film about the surreal circumstances that brought them together, little did they expect that their love story would be put under a political spotlight. "The Big Sick" explores Nanjiani's cultural conflict as a Pakistani Muslim comedian in a post-9/11 America. His life is further complicated when he falls in love with Gordon, played by Zoe Kazan, and goes against his family's wishes that he marry a Pakistani woman. The film, out in limited US release on Friday, is "coming out at a time when there's a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment, there's a lot of Islamophobia," Nanjiani said in an interview. "By depicting a Muslim family as like normal people, that's its big political statement," said Nanjiani, who is also the first Pakistani leading man in a Hollywood romantic comedy. The movie arrives after US President Donald Trump's call during his 2016 election campaign for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States". Now in the White House, Trump is seeking to ban travellers from six Muslim-majority countries in a case awaiting a US Supreme Court decision. Nanjiani, 39, best known for playing snarky programmer Dinesh in HBO's comedy "Silicon Valley," and Gordon said they did not predict the film would wade into a hot-button issue. "It obviously feels so weirdly timely but it also does have this expectation on it that it really wasn't built for," Nanjiani said. "Really, it's just a love story." In "The Big Sick," Nanjiani's family struggle with his decision to pursue comedy as they try to arrange a suitable marriage, while he secretly dates the smart, nerdy Emily. Nanjiani's world is upended when Emily falls into a coma with an undiagnosed illness and he keeps a bedside vigil alongside her parents. "I think that Kumail is trying to show how similar their lives are to people who already live here in some respects. They're looking for love and they're trying to be happy and they're also dealing with their culture," Judd Apatow, the film's producer said. In one scene, Nanjiani is heckled during his stand-up comedy routine by a man calling him a terrorist. In another, Ray Romano, who plays Gordon's father, asks Kumail about his stance on the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. "Anti. It was a tragedy," Nanjiani said, before quipping, "I mean, we lost 19 of our best guys". "The Big Sick" arrives as Hollywood films such as "Get Out" and "Wonder Woman" are starting to break the white, male-dominated movie mold and show that audiences will pay to see films with minority leads. "It's important for kids to see themselves in the stuff they watch. But more than that, I think it's important that people from different points of view are behind the camera telling the stories, writing them, directing them," Nanjiani said.

Cross-culture romance under lens in 'The Big Sick'

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SAG nominations focus on indie movies, snub Streep and Day-Lewis

Cross-culture romance under lens in 'The Big Sick'