'Manchester by the Sea' leads SAG Awards with four nominations

By Piya Sinha-Roy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Manchester by the Sea," a gritty drama about a working-class family dealing with multiple tragedies, led the nominees for the Screen Actors Guild awards on Wednesday.

The film landed four nominations, including one for best ensemble, the top prize, as well as best actor for Casey Affleck.

Independent drama "Moonlight," about an impoverished black boy grappling with his sexuality, and "Fences," a tense drama about an African-American family in the 1950s, scored three nominations each, including best ensemble.

"Captain Fantastic," a comedy about an unorthodox family, and "Hidden Figures," about three black female mathematicians helping the U.S. government in the 1960s space race, also received nods in the best ensemble category.

More than 100,000 actors pick the annual SAG awards, which honor the year's top film and television performances. The winners will be announced at a televised awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Jan. 29.

Musical "La La Land," currently a front-runner in Hollywood's annual awards season, was shut out of the best ensemble category, which favors large casts, but it scored nominations for lead stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)