‘Brokeback’ SAG nominations include Ledger’s lead actor nod

The cowboy love story “Brokeback Mountain” led nominees Thursday for film prizes from actors and directors unions, including bids for performers Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams and Jake Gyllenhaal and filmmaker Ang Lee.

“Brokeback” earned four Screen Actors Guild nominations: lead actor for Ledger and supporting actor for Gyllenhaal, who play old sheepherding buddies concealing their homosexual affair from their families; supporting actress for Williams, Ledger’s real-life partner, who plays his wife in the film; and best overall performance by its entire cast.

Lee, whose films include “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Hulk,” was among best-filmmaker nominees by the Directors Guild of America.

Other directing nominees were George Clooney for the Edward R. Murrow tale “Good Night, and Good Luck”; Paul Haggis for the ensemble drama “Crash”; Bennett Miller for the Truman Capote story “Capote”; and Steven Spielberg for “Munich,” a thriller centered on the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

Clooney also earned a supporting-actor nominee from SAG for his role as an undercover CIA agent in the oil-industry thriller “Syriana.”

Along with “Brokeback Mountain,” SAG nominations for best film cast went to “Capote,” “Crash,” “Good Night, and Good Luck” and “Hustle & Flow,” the story of a pimp and drug dealer forging a career as a rap singer.

Joining Ledger in the lead-actor category were Philip Seymour Hoffman as author Capote in “Capote”; Russell Crowe as Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock in “Cinderella Man”; Joaquin Phoenix as singer Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line”; and David Strathairn as newsman Murrow in “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

Lead-actress nominees were Judi Dench as a society dame who starts a nude stage revue in 1930s London in “Mrs. Henderson Presents”; Felicity Huffman in a gender-bending role as a man preparing for sex-change surgery in “Transamerica”; Charlize Theron as a woman leading a sexual-harassment lawsuit at a mining company in “North Country”; Reese Witherspoon as Cash’s soul mate and eventual wife, June Carter, in “Walk the Line”; and Ziyi Zhang as a poor girl who becomes a belle of Japan in “Memoirs of a Geisha.”

SAG awards will be presented Jan. 29 in a ceremony televised on TNT and TBS. The Directors Guild will present its awards Jan. 30.

Stewart to host Oscars

Jon Stewart has been tapped to host this year’s Oscars, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced Thursday.

“Jon is the epitome of a perfect host – smart, engaging, irreverent and funny,” awards show producer Gil Cates said.

Stewart, 43, hosts Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” which has earned seven Emmys and a Peabody award. He has previous experience hosting awards shows, taking over the Grammys in 2001 and 2002.

He follows a long line of stand-up comedians who have hosted the Oscars. Over the years, Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal have held down the podium, and Chris Rock hosted last year.

Rock drew younger viewers, but his barbs skewering such stars as Jude Law, Tobey Maguire and others alienated some academy members.

“As a performer, I’m truly honored to be hosting the show,” Stewart said, then joked: “Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can’t help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal.”

The 78th annual Academy Awards will air March 5 on ABC.