Though many of the great
performances in this category were from women,
there were more than their fair share of great schools of acting by men.
I'm hoping that the Emmys will ignore the overblown work of Jude Law in The Young Pope, but the truth is HBO had
more than a reasonable number of great performances. The question is, will
their memories stretch back far enough.
Riz Ahmed, The Night of
Now recognized by most people for
his work in Rogue One, its all too
easy to forget just how magnificent his work as Naz, a young Muslim with the
misfortune to pick up the wrong woman in his cab that fatal night. Watching him
go from a wide-eyed innocent who couldn't believe what happened to a hardened
criminal waiting for trial in Riker's was one of the most incredible journeys
that any actor has taken all season. The fact that the series ended with no
clear idea - even from Naz himself - whether he committed the crime or not was
demonstrated in a mesmerizing turn. He may out of prison, but he will never be
free.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock
Always one of the most fascinating
versions of this character, Cumberbatch did some truly wondrous work in what
may be the final installment of this series. Reeling from the true loss of
Watson for the season, and learning some of the most haunting truths that any
incarnation of this character went through, he deserves one more bite in this
truly great incarnation of a character we all thought we knew.
Robert DeNiro, The Wizard of Lies
It wasn't as histrionic as some of
the performances we tend to get in HBO movies. But watching the world of Bernie
Madoff unravel like the Ponzi schemes he set into motion was a rare act of
subtlety in this gifted actors work. Deniro has been reviving his career very
well ever since Silver Linings Playbook, and
for once, I wouldn't object to watching a great actor take a spot that could go
to a less recognized on.
Timothy Hutton, American Crime
Hutton has been one of the more
undervalued actors in this extraordinary anthology series, always playing
characters who have been gutted by some kind of loss, and can't take the right
path to revive. Here, playing the owner of a furniture factory so frustrating
with the way life has taken him that he can't even enjoy his professional or
personal life, he did another one of his more incredible portrayals.
Inexplicably he was ignored by the Emmys last year. I hope they won't make the
same mistake again.
Ewan MacGregor, Fargo
And here is the out and out
favorite in this category. It's one thing that he played two very different
characters as Emmett and Ray Stussy, two men whose fortunes take very different
paths after an exchange of bequeathals twenty years earlier. Its another to
show that both of these men, despite their different fortunes, would undergo a
series of events that would cause each of them to lose everything. And I don't
know if there was any other actor who could make us feel such compassion for
two different men both engaged in horrible acts to destroy the other - and that
in the end did. It'll be very difficult for him to lose this year.
John Turturro, The Night Of
It tells you something that the
role that Turturro was going to play - a wizened attorney drawn into saving a
young man, all the while suffering from psorasis - was originally meant for
James Gandolfini. It tells even more about Turturro as an actor that he was
able to make you completely forget that this role was meant for him, and that
now they may try to build a series around it. It was a memorable portrayal in a
series full of them. Turturro has been one of the great ignored character
actors of our time. He deserves a nomination at least.
WILD CARD
Kyle Macalahan, Twin Peaks : The Return
Same factors apply that I listed in
the Best Limited Series. But its remarkable that A, he's not repeating the
version of Agent Cooper that mesmerized us so much in the past, and B, he's
playing two different versions of himself, completely different from the
character we know so well. In a series that bares so little resemblance even to
the Lynchian project we knew so well, he remains the stalwart figure, even if
he is pretending to be someone else both times. And really, that's worth an
Emmy nod in itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment