OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING
ACTOR IN A DRAMA
The nominees in this
category traditionally feature some of the best character actors in history.
This year will be no exception. I am willing to concede that there may very
well be more nominees from Succession than I’m willing to allow in this
category – Nicholas Braun has been present in the previous two seasons and
Alexander Skarsgard is rising very quickly. I will also allow that there might
be other exclusions and inclusions that will have symmetry - it is possible that an actor who is
currently playing Prince Philip on The Crown may be forsaken for an
actor who played a younger incarnation of him. And I never object to seeing Matt
Smith in the ranks. Similarly Alexander Skarsgard might end up competing
against his own father, who is rising in the ranks for his work in Andor, which I have yet to see. All
things are possible.
However, I intend to go
with the eight nominees that I both have the most desire to see in a month.
Some are more certain than others; some are losing ground to newer faces. All
of them gave some of the best performances over the last year. I will acknowledge
Succession twice – but for the two actors who unquestionably deserve it
the most.
F. Murray Abraham, The
White Lotus
This is where the decision
for The White Lotus to compete as a Drama is going to hurt it the most. If
it were competing in the Limited series category, it would likely do as well as
it did last year, with nominations for Michael Imperioli and Theo James certain
and Will Sharpe just as likely. But there’s already a good of rich elitists competing
in this category and the Roy clan have a better track record here. So it is very
likely that the only representative will be F. Murray Abraham for his hysterical
performance as Albie, the pater familias of the Grasso clan who comes on the
trip to Italy. By the far most shameless
of the male actors in the series, showing no regret for his actions in the past
or the present but no shame in chiding his son for his infidelities, Abraham
chews the scenery in a way this usually subtle actor rarely gets an opportunity
to do. Abraham has been one of the great
character actors for nearly four decades, but he rarely gets a shine to show
his comic chops and he absolutely was the most fun of all the actors in this series.
None of the guests learned a lesson this season, but on the way home he clearly
demonstrated that the Grasso clan clearly has what he describes as an ‘Achilles
Cock’. The fact that he already has a Golden Globe nomination and gave a
glorious acceptance speech for the cast at the SAG awards assures his presence.
Jonathan Banks, Better
Call Saul
Yes, this is my final call
for another nomination for one of the greatest actors playing one of the
greatest characters in TV history. But Banks has never gotten his due from the
Emmys either: he was nominated the first four years Better Call Saul was
on the air, but inexplicably was ignored the next two. (Well, maybe not the
second: the cast of Severance and Squid Game did deserve their
nominations last year.) This is the last chance the Emmys will ever have to
nominate Banks for playing Mike Ehrmantraut. And it’s not like he didn’t have
some choice moments in the final season: his interactions with Gus Fring in the
sixth season premiere, his first interaction he had with Saul Goodman in regard
to Walter White, and the flashback in the series finale where we saw a conversation he had with Jimmy in ‘Bagman’,
where he gave an honest answer to Jimmy’s question about where he’d go if he’d
have a time machine – and in a way, it was truly heartbreaking. I think the odds of Banks winning are remote,
but he sure as hell deserves one last bite.
Giancarlo Esposito, Better
Call Saul
Esposit0, in a weird way,
is the only potential nominee in this category who already has an award to his
title: he won Best Supporting Actor in a Drama from the Critics Choice this
January. I assumed, because it applied to his work in both halves of the final
season that it was a combined honor and considering that he had won the prize from
the HCA the previous summer – when it was only for the first half – that it was
for much of his work there. It is harder to justify his nomination for the
final season, when we only saw Gus Fring in two episodes. But it’s far from
impossible given the range in those two episodes. We saw Gus deal with the
danger Lalo Salamanca presented. We saw him choose to go for the super-lab,
nearly meet his match there, and only because of his preparation did he survive
his greatest threat. We saw him try to cover his work, both in his true life
and his false one. And then in a scene that utterly went against everything we
thought we knew about Gus Fring, we saw him go to a bar and have a conversation
with a sommelier. The conversation was something we had never seen of Gus Fring
over two different series – a human being like the rest of us, only wanting to
connect, and in the last moment we saw him, walking away because he knew his
life would never allow that joy. Esposito is, in a sense, the sentimental
favorite in this category. And though, paradoxically, he will probably have
more chances than several of the other nominees (he still has recurring roles
on The Boys and The Mandalorian) it would be fitting if he were
to win. I would love to see him up there.
John Lithgow, The Old
Man
At this point, you’d think
I was incapable of being surprised by John Lithgow by now. He’s already won six
Emmys in his career, three times in Comedy for playing Dick Solomon, once for
playing the most menacing serial killer Dexter Morgan would ever face, and once
for playing Winston Churchill. But as Harold Harper, the head of the FBI forced
to deal with a past that after forty years come back to haunt him, he reaches
levels we have never seen. Until the season finale, he and Jeff Bridges were
never in the same scene together. So we got to see him go at what was happening
in another way. We saw him deal with his former mentor and his most trusted pupil
and learned that both had spent decades betraying him. He spent time hiring
hitmen to handle his problem and kept getting more trouble. He realized that an
Afghani warlord was searching for his mistakes and there was only one thing he
could do fix them – and he couldn’t do it. And then, when he learned the nature
of the betrayal, he turned to the only man he could. And that’s without that
scene in the car. Lithgow received nominations from both the Golden Globes and
the Critics Choice awards, and we already know by now how much the Emmys love
him. He is a near certainty for another nomination.
Matthew MacFayden, Succession
Some said that Tom ‘won’ Succession
but we all knew that there were no winners in the series finale. Tom had betrayed his wife in the third season
finale for Logan and then watched as his leverage died in front of his eyes. He
spent much of the season trying to reconcile with Shiv, having a knock down
drag out fight in which he revealed that he was far more of a victim than any
of the others, betrayed the nation on
election day, ended up being bullied and labeled a punching bag and only got
the job because Shiv chose to betray her brother and not him. I’m pretty sure
that the moment he became CEO was as good as it got for him: he was handed a
paper empire and he sold his soul to get it. MacFayden is currently the front
runner to repeat his victory from last year, and while there are a couple of
actors in this category who could well overtake him, few would argue he
deserves to return.
Jonathan Pryce, The
Crown
Like the role of
Elizabeth, the two previous portrayers of Philip, Matt Smith and Tobias Menzies
have earned Supporting Actor nominations for their work on The Crown. Pryce showed in his first two episodes
that he was more than worthy of a nomination: playing the guardian of Elizabeth
as a story might prove to be a problem, showing his own recklessness when he
confronts the daughter of an old friend, openly threatening Diana about
uprooting ‘the system’ that he openly chafed at and rebelled against as it as
youth. Like Staunton, he demonstrates the
evolution and distortion the monarchy has on those who exist in it. And he is
also one of the greatest character actors in history for more than forty years
but who only recently has begun to receive the recognition he deserves. His
nomination for a Golden Globe would seem to make it clear that he is a heavy
favorite.
Alan Ruck, Succession
Perhaps it is because I
have always admired Alan Ruck but I always felt a certain sympathy for Connor
throughout the series, mainly because he was such a loser rather than despite of
it. His siblings never accepted him, which may be the reason he tried so hard
to have them reconcile with Logan before his death. Alone among them, he seemed
to have the most realistic reaction and its noteworthy that while all his
siblings could do during the last season was plot to take over his empire, Connor
spent the time making sure the father who never loved him received a proper
funeral. Alone among the Roy children I
think he might be able to come away with a chance of happiness, which is more
than any of his siblings did at the series finale.
Like Connor, Ruck has been
one of the only members of the cast of Succession never to get the respect
he deserves from the Emmys, usually because the rest of his family is in this
category taking nominations from him. With Kieran Culkin competing in the Best
Actor category, Ruck’s chances have skyrocketed and given how many great
moments he had in the final season – particularly when he told his siblings how
empty they were looking for Logan’s love and that look of pure happiness at his
deserted wedding – he has a chance for a
nomination. Of the entire cast, I would love to see him win this summer.
Elijah Wood, Yellowjackets
A lot of these actors are
serious. Wood just wants to have fun. His fellow crime-stopper Walter was one
of the breakout characters on the second season of Yellowjackets, a character
who is just as messed up as all the women in the cast but who doesn’t have the
excuse of a plane crash and trauma for it.
The fact that Wood shared the screen with Christina Ricci a full quarter
of a century after there wonderful movie The Ice Storm is wonderful synchronicity,
particularly as we saw Misty a character who makes everybody uncomfortable,
clearly uncomfortable around a man who loves her eccentricities. I hope that Wood
becomes a regular in Season 3 and I hope he gets an Emmy nomination for being
absolutely hysterical.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Shea Whigham, Perry
Mason
Another year and I’m
advocating for Shea Whigham again. Ever
since his work on Boardwalk Empire there have been few more reliable actors
to watch do character work on TV – and fewer still who get less credit for it. He was shutout for Homecoming and Gaslit
both of which the Emmys inexplicably chose to ignore and its hard to
imagine him getting his due for a series that has just been canceled. But he still has the ability to steal every scene
he’s in. This time, he plays a man who finds himself both rivaling and trying
to aid his old friend. He knows Perry better than anyone and even when he works
against him, he knows he’s the man who can help. Often deadly serious and
hysterically funny in the same time, Whigham deserves a nomination. If they don’t
give it to him this year, don’t worry. I’m sure that this time next year, he’ll
have been a part of another series giving another great performance that the
Emmys will choose to ignore.
Tomorrow, I will wrap up
Drama with Best Supporting Actress along with some speculation as to Best Guest
Actor and Actress. Yes, I know there
will be a lot of Succession actors: I have some options
who aren’t from there.
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