Miramax's Chicago led the pack with five SAG Awardsnominations today (Jan 28), including lead actor and actress nods for GoldenGlobe winners Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger and an ensemble cast nomination.Gere's first SAG Awards nomination pits him against fellow Golden Globewinner Jack Nicholson for About Schmidt, Adrien Brody for The Pianist, Daniel Day-Lewis for Gangs Of NewYork and Nicolas Cagefor Adaptation.

While this yearalso marks a first nomination for Day-Lewis and Brody, both Nicholson and Cagehave previously won SAG's top acting honours, for As Good As It Gets in 1998 and Leaving Las Vegas in 1996 respectively. In the female leadrace Nicole Kidman remains the one to beat following her Golden Globe for TheHours and will goagainst Zellweger for Chicago, Julianne Moore for Far From Heaven, Salma Hayek for Frida and Diane Lane for Unfaithful. Kidman, Moore and Zellweger have allbeen nominated in the category once before while Hayek and Lane are debutantes.Chicago is joined inthe ensemble category by The Hours, which picked up four nominations in total, Adaptation, The Lord Of The Rings: The TwoTowers and My Big FatGreek Wedding.

Rounding out Chicago's haul are Catherine Zeta-Jones -demoted from her lead actress status at the Golden Globes - and Queen Latifah,who are both in the running for supporting actress. They face stiff competitionfrom Kathy Bates for About Schmidt, Michelle Pfeiffer for White Oleander and Julianne Moore for The Hours, her second individual nomination of theday. The supporting actor category features Ed Harris for The Hours, Golden Globe winner Chris Cooper for Adaptation, Dennis Quaid for Far From Heaven, Christopher Walken for Catch Me IfYou Can and AlfredMolina for Frida.

Ironically thegreatest actress of them all Meryl Streep, who won the supporting actressGolden Globe for Adaptation and was nominated in the lead category for The Hours, was only recognized by SAG as one ofthe ensembles in both films.

The nominationsfor the 9th SAG Awards were announced by SAG president Melissa Gilbert andactors Megan Mullally and Michael Clarke Duncan. Two randomly selected panelscomprising 4,200 SAG members across the US chose the nominees and around 98,000members will vote to decide the winners. The awards ceremony will take place onMar 9 at the Shrine Exposition Centre in Los Angeles, when Clint Eastwood willjoin honourees to collect the SAG 39th Annual Life Achievement Award.

The 9th SAGAwards nominations for feature films:

OutstandingPerformance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role:

Adrien Brody, ThePianist

Nicolas Cage, Adaptation

DanielDay-Lewis, Gangs Of New York

Richard Gere, Chicago

Jack Nicholson, AboutSchmidt

OutstandingPerformance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

Salma Hayek, Frida

Nicole Kidman, TheHours

Diane Lane, Unfaithful

Julianne Moore, FarFrom Heaven

Renee Zellweger,Chicago

OutstandingPerformance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

Chris Cooper, Adaptation

Ed Harris, TheHours

Alfred Molina, Frida

Dennis Quaid, FarFrom Heaven

ChristopherWalken, Catch Me If You Can

For OutstandingPerformance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role

Kathy Bates, AboutSchmidt

Julianne Moore, TheHours

MichellePfeiffer, White Oleander

Queen Latifah, Chicago

CatherineZeta-Jones, Chicago

For OutstandingPerformance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture

Adaptation(Nicolas Cage, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Cara Seymour, Meryl Streep,Tilda Swinton)

Chicago(Christine Baranski, Taye Diggs, Colm Feore, Richard Gere, Mya Harrison,Lucy Liu, Queen Latifah, John C Reilly, Dominic West, Renee Zellweger,Catherine Zeta-Jones)

The Hours (Toni Collette, Claire Danes, JeffDaniels, Stephen Dillane, Ed Harris, Allison Janney, Nicole Kidman, JulianneMoore, John C Reilly, Miranda Richardson, Meryl Streep)

The Lord OfThe Rings: The Two Towers(Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Brad Dourif, BernardHill, Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, MirandaOtto, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, David Wenham,Elijah Wood)

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Gia Carides, Michael Constantine, John Corbett,Joey Fatone, Lainie Kazan, Andrea Martin, Nia Vardalos)