While still not thrilled with the absence of anyone from Better Call Saul or This is Us (many of whom had their last chance to be nominated this year), I’m somewhat happier with the eight nominated actors than I was a month ago. Many of them gave exceptional performances, and despite the clear frontrunner given the general number of awards given out, I think the race is more open than you’d think. Here is my opinion and predictions.
Nicholas Braun, Succession: 19-2
For Playing: Cousin Greg, the eternally put upon weak sister of the Roy clan. For Him: It’s difficult to consider any member of this horrid family being considered ‘beloved’, but at the very least, Greg’s eternal weakness in the face of all this bloodthirstiness around him gives Braun some of the most hysterical and brilliant lines. Considering the back and forth between him and Tom (the one person that Tom comfortably can bully) always leads to highlights, the fact that he’s always reaching far beyond the grasp – and the outside possibility that in the finale he may have actually managed to find upward mobility – does mean that there might be more to him than meets the eye. Against Him: Braun never seems to get the appreciation from the Emmys that his cousins do. All of them keep winning awards and he only gets nominated. Of the three Succession nominees in this category, he is the least likely to win. Well, that’s sort of fitting, considering the lot of the character he plays.
Billy Crudup, The Morning Show: 8-1.
For Playing: Cory Ellison, the newly promoted head of network. For Him: Crudup was the upset winner back in 2020, the only winner from The Morning Show in fact. And even though his character is fundamentally disliked by everybody who has to deal with him, you have to deal with him because he’s the boss, and that means going along with him, even when he sings. Crudup is, like so many in this category, a brilliant character actor who has the ability to draw your attention even when so many brighter lights are on the screen. Just as he shocked everybody last year, he could do it again this year. Against Him: The shine is off The Morning Show (if it was ever on it). It was clear when Severance dominated the Emmy nominations that the once bright show wasn’t even the best streaming drama on Apple anymore. Crudup’s chance of repeating has fallen far lower than the odds should give him.
Kieran Culkin, Succession: 9-2
For Playing: Roman, the youngest of the Roys who keeps getting increasingly in hot water. For Him: Roman is the most openly unpleasant of all the Roy children (my opinion anyway) as well as the most hysterical. There’s never a way he can’t put somebody down; never a situation he can’t infinitely make worse. Even when he’s trying to comfort Kendall after he makes a startling admission to him in the season finale, he invariably makes it all about him. And he keeps going out of his way to make his situation worse – whether with his ‘pics’ to the much older family counsel he’s having an affair with, and his seeming inability to have been damaged the most by his father. Culkin is always entertaining, and that was manifestly clear when he won the Supporting Actor prize at the Broadcast Critics awards and gave a speech that very easily could have come from Logan’s mouth. The Emmys could give him the award to see just what he’ll do when he wins. Against Him: Culkin was in this exact situation two years ago and ended up losing to Billy Crudup. The Critics Choice has been the only award he’s one this year – he lost the Golden Globes and earlier this month, he was upset by Giancarlo Esposito for the HCA Award in Broadcast and Cable. I think the support for him is softer than it looks.
Park Hae-Soo, Squid Game: 9-1.
For Playing: Cho Sang-woo, the pride of his hometown now the most desperate player in the game. For Playing: At first Cho seems like the most rational and realistic character in the series – he leads the initial vote to get out alive. Then he spends much of the next few episodes as the apparent leader. But as the series continues, you begin to see all that as part of a man who wants to win and will do anything to do that. With each successive game he becomes more and more ruthless, committing cold-blooded murder in the penultimate episode. In the final episode, he seems to recognize what he has become and in his last action, earns back a piece of his soul. This is a remarkable performance the kind that should get awards. Against Him: There is another remarkable co-star of his in this category who managed to win a Golden Globe for his work (see below). Perhaps more importantly, to get the full measure of Hae-Soo’s performance you have to see the entire series to appreciate it. I have a feeling that will work against him far more as well as the tough competition in this category.
Matthew MacFayden, Succession: 11-2.
For Playing, Tom, the Roy-in-law who is increasingly unhappy with his part in the machinations of his family. For Him: There was talk of Caligula throughout Season 3, and it looked very much in the season finale that Tom finally realized where the power in the Roy family was and betrayed the wife who has never had any respect for him. There might be a chance that Tom was the clear ‘winner’ of Season 3. For that reason, MacFayden has been moving up in the odds in awards preference. And it’s not hard to see why. Tom’s character isn’t strictly speaking, likable, but giving everything he’s had to go through leading up to and since his wedding of Shiv, he’s by far the easier character to root for. And every time he ends up in the same scene with Cousin Greg, its magic, something even someone like me who doesn’t like the series can admit. If we’re going to give an acting award to someone in Succession, can’t we give it to someone who did something none of the Roy family would ever do, and earn it? Against Him: MacFayden was in this exact scenario last year. Having the vote in this category split three ways almost always works against TV series (Game of Thrones the only recent exception). That could end up with Tom getting screwed again.
John Turturro, Severance: 8-1.
For Playing: Irving, the least liked member of his team, who is going through more struggles due to undergoing the process early. For Him: Turturro is one of the greatest and most underrated actors in history. He has somehow starred in some of the greatest films in history and never gotten an Oscar nomination. He has worked in a lot of great television and only gotten a single Emmy nomination (he lost Best Actor to Riz Ahmed, his co-lead in The Night Of) And the cast of Severance has such a great ensemble (the HCA nominated four actors in this category) that it would be easy for him to get lost in it. But Turturro managed to prevail last week because his Irving, like all his characters, has more depth than you want to admit. Like so many of the characters Turturro is famous for playing, Irving is a gadfly barely tolerated in his work life. The audience is inclined to quickly dislike him. And yet we see how much Irving is struggling and we see it early. We see how much of his work is a brave face and how much he doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere. Like most Turturro characters, he wins you over almost against your will. Purely for sentimental reasons, I’d really like to see him win this year. Against Him: The Emmys, as we all know, has never been sentimental particularly when it comes to Peak TV. How many times did Jonathan Banks lose to Peter Dinklage? The Emmys showed zero towards Michael K. Williams, even after he passed away last year. I’d hope the award might be enough to push him over the top, but there are a lot of great character actors in this field.
Christopher Walken, Severance: 19-2
For Playing: Burt, from a different part of Lumon, who increasingly finds himself in Irving’s orbit. For Him: Walken has been such a fixture of the cultural landscape for so long – often more cliché than anything else – that we too often forget how great an actor he is when it comes to showing humanity. He gets a chance to do as Burt, another aging member of Lumon, part of a department that is scorned by the team Irving is on, someone struggling for respect. Walken gets to show emotions and range we too often forget him capable of – several of them more emotionally surprising than the plot twists on Severance – and in a cast full of great actors, Walken proves again why he’s one of the greatest of them all. Against Him: Walken’s role in the series was less essential to the larger story than Turturro or indeed several other characters. And unlike Turturro, he has received a lot of recognition from awards shows. I suspect the nomination will be enough.
Oh Yeong-su, Squid Game: 6-1.
For Playing: Oh Il-nam, a dying old man who plays the game because of a tumor in his head. For Him: Yeong-su was the surprising winner of a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor this March, and having seen the full extent of his work in Squid Game it’s clear why. His character has a fuller range than almost anyone other than Jung-Jae – he seems wise beyond his year, with better advice than more players, then starting losing cognition and in his final game, seems to lose all touch with reality. Watching Seong sadly cheat him in order to survive was moving, as was his final moment – until the series finale when you realized just what a performance it was. This was a triumph in a series full of great moments, and he could be a spoiler. Against Him: The Golden Globes have a particular black mark against them this year, and there are many good American veteran actors in this category (see above) That may be too much for Yeong-su, like the character he seemed to play, to overcome.
PREDICTION: With the awards all over the place, I think it comes down to one of three – Culkin, Turturro or Yeong-su. I will hope for one of the latter two (particularly Turturro) but I will lean towards Culkin this time.
Tomorrow I finish with Supporting Actress in a Drama and some ephemera.
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