Eddie Redmayne, Cate Blanchett among those to get SAG Award nods for playing LGBT roles

Just watched The Danish Girl the other night so it is no surprise to me – or anyone who has seen it – that Eddie Redmayne stayed on course for another Oscar by scoring a Screen Actors Guild nomination today for his deeply moving performance as a pioneering transgender woman.

Redmayne, of course, won the SAG honor last year for The Theory of Everything then went on to win the Academy Award.

The SAG Awards, voted on by fellow actors, are often seen as accurate precursors to an Academy Award so if Redmayne wins, he would be front-runner to be first performer since Tom Hanks to win back-to-back best actor Oscars.

Cate Blanchett, winner of the SAG Award and Oscar two years ago for Blue Jasmine, is once again nominated for best actress. This time her nod comes for her performance as a lesbian in the 1950s whose affair with a younger woman comes with a price.

The younger woman is played by Rooney Mara who has been nominated in the supporting actress category this year.

Redmayne, Blanchett and Mara are among the performers nominated for LGBT roles in films.

The SAG Awards also present awards for television work and several of those nominations are also for LGBT roles.

They include: Jeffrey Tambor for his role as a transgender woman in Tranparent; Queen Latifah as bisexual blues singer Bessie Smith in Bessie; Uzo Aduba for her performance as lesbian inmate Suzanne ‘Crazy Eyes’ Warren in Orange is the New Black; and Viola Davis as bisexual attorney and law professor Annalise Keating on How To Get Away With Murder.

Several openly gay, bisexual or transgender performers are also among the nominees.

They include: Jim Parsons with nods for best actor in a comedy series and comedy series ensemble; Jessie Tyler Ferguson in comedy series ensemble category as part of the cast Modern Family; Cherry Jones in comedy series ensemble category for Transparent and Laverne Cox, Lea Delaria and Ruby Rose in comedy ensemble category for Orange is the New Black.

Go to SAG.org for a full list of nominees.

The awards will be presented on January 30, 2016.