From actors and directors to writers and cinematographers, the Irish are having a very busy show biz awards season.
The Oscar nominations were announced on January 10, and Daniel Day-Lewis led the Irish contingent of nominees. It was the fourth nomination for Day-Lewis, who won the coveted Best Actor Academy Award for 2007’s There Will Be Blood, and previously won in 1989 for his portrayal of Christy Brown in Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot. Day-Lewis has also been nominated for Sheridan’s In the Name of the Father and for playing Bill the Butcher, an anti-Irish bigot in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York.
This time around, Day-Lewis was nominated in the Best Actor category for his role as the 16th American president in Lincoln, which is also up for Best Picture. Irish American Bradley Cooper also nabbed a Best Actor nomination for his role in Silver Linings Playbook. Cooper and Day-Lewis are up against Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables) and Denzel Washington (Flight).
Speaking of Flight, New York-born Irish American John Gatins received a nomination for the film’s screenplay. Gatins, who’d been working on Flight for years, earned raves for the realism in his script about an alcoholic airline pilot. Gatins was also nominated for Best Screenplay by the Writers’ Guild of America.
Meanwhile, Armagh native Seamus McGarvey earned an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography. McGarvey was behind the camera for Joe Wright’s adaptation of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law, and featuring the Irish Domhnall Gleeson. McGarvey also received an Oscar nomination for shooting Wright’s Atonement in 2007.
Finally, in the Short Animated Film category, Irish-born producer Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly has been nominated for Head Over Heels, a comic look at an embittered married couple.
The Oscar ceremony will be held Sunday, February 24th.
Daniel Day-Lewis also headlined the BAFTA nominations – announced by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Day-Lewis – and Bradley Cooper – were nominated for Best Actor BAFTAs. Seamus McGarvey also received a BAFTA nod for Best Cinematography.
In addition, Martin McDonagh’s film Seven Psychopaths (starring Colin Farrell, among others) is in the BAFTA running for Best British Film. Seven Psychopaths is up against Skyfall, Les Miserables, Anna Karenina and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Finally, nominations for the Irish Film and Television Academy (IFTA) Awards had plenty of big names as well as up-and-comers.
Nominated for Best Irish Film are Death of a Superhero, Good Vibrations, Grabbers, Shadow Dancer and What Richard Did. Nominees for Best Screenplay include Seven Psychopaths by Martin McDonagh, who is also up for Best Irish Director.
In the lead acting IFTA categories among men and women, Colin Farrell was nominated for Seven Psychopaths, alongside Martin McCann, Ruth Bradley and Anne Marie Duff, among others.
Supporting actor nominees include Domhnall Gleeson (Anna Karenina), Ciaran Hinds (The Woman in Black) and Bronagh Gallagher (Grabbers). Top Irish TV shows include RTÉ’s crime drama Love/Hate and Neil Jordan’s The Borgias.
The HBO hit Game of Thrones (filmed in Northern Ireland) also received several nominations. Hollywood stars Chris O’Dowd and Deirdre O’Kane earned nods for Supporting Acting roles in Moone Boy, for which O’Dowd also received a writing nomination.
Gabriel Byrne, Colm Meaney and Orla Brady also received Irish nominations for their TV work.
Irish talent “is resilient and hard-working, producing some of the most diverse, engaging and talked-about Irish dramas, documentaries, feature films . . . and factual programs, and there’s no shortage of new and upcoming Irish creative talent, ready to make their mark on the world stage,” according to IFTA CEO Aine Moriarty.
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