Ruth Negga.Flickr.

She posed alongside a super-sized gold statuette in New York last week, and lots of Oscar pundits are saying that Irish actress Ruth Negga is a hot favorite to bring the prized trophy home next year thanks to her breakout role in Loving, which opens nationwide on Friday.

Negga, raised in Co. Limerick and well-known on the Irish acting circuit, stars as Mildred Loving in the acclaimed film about an interracial couple who took their fight to marry to the Supreme Court in 1967 in a landmark case that struck down state bans on interracial marriages.  Early Oscar buzz is equally effusive for her Aussie co-star Joel Edgarton who plays Richard Loving.

Talk of awards glory, though, is far from 34-year-old Negga’s mind, at least for now.  “I don’t think in those terms really. I think  it’s my superstition but also I don’t know,” she says.

“I think that it’s very nice that people say nice things about your film and your work, of course it is. It’s flattering, it’s lovely.”

It’s a long way till Oscar night on February 26, but Negga seems a shoo-in for a Best Actress nod.