At the moment, the
overwhelming favorite in this category is Evan Peters for his work in the title
role of Dahmer. Peters took the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Limited
Series last year. His momentum was halted at the Critics Choice awards when
Daniel Radcliffe took the prize for his work in the title role of Weird: The
Al Yankovic Story.
I have no intention of giving
any support to a series I have not watched and have no intention of doing so. I’m
more inclined to give recognition to Radcliffe for reasons that I will list
below. However, there are several interesting possibilities in this category and
for that reason I intend to follow my own path yet again.
Steve Carell, The
Patient
I have a love-hate
relationship with Steve Carell. Loved him on The Daily Should; couldn’t
stand him on The Office. Thought he should have gotten an Oscar
nomination for his work in The Big Short; was appalled that he was
nominated for Best Actor on The Morning Show instead of Bob Odenkirk in
2020. (Seriously, explain that to me.) But for his portrayal of the terrified
Alan Strauss in the extraordinary The Patient, I have nothing but the
highest praise. Carell’s work inexplicably
has gotten less recognition than his co-star Domhnall Gleason who was nominated
for Best Supporting Actor by the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards
while inexplicably ignoring Carell. The SAGs made up for it by nominating him
for Best Performance by a Male Actor. In a sense, it’s logical: Gleeson work is
so terrifying as he is utterly calm about the horrible things he does while
Carell is subdued throughout, trying to suppress his terror about his inevitable
fate. But in my opinion Carell gives the greater performance, as he does everything
in his power to try and find a way to reason with a man who has no empathy at
all, to prevent the killings that Sam keeps committing and blaming on him, and
finding a way to deal with the rift between him and his son that have plagued
him, and which in the series finale he finds a way to resolve as he accepts his
inevitable fate. This performance deserves a nomination, and if Carell doesn’t
get it, it will be the first time in his history with the Emmys that I’ll be
disappointed if he’s ignored.
Taron Egerton, Black
Bird
Egerton’s work as Jimmy
Keane was understanding given less attention than the supporting roles in this
category, which given the level of their quality was perhaps inevitable. It
shouldn’t have been. From the moment we saw him onscreen, Egerton riveted us by
looking at a man with no moral compass and center who had no ability to take
responsibility for his actions. Then he made a deal with the FBI to get into a
dark and frightening situation to save his father – with no idea just how
horrible things would get even before he met up with Larry Hall. As the scale of the darkness both of his
situation and his horror and what he ended up seeing Larry was capable of, Egerton
by far went through the greatest range of emotion, and we believed him when we
saw Jimmy at the end of the series when he had come out completely
different. In a different world Egerton would
be the front-runner for the Emmy: I thought he was robbed of the Golden Globe
and I couldn’t comprehend why he wasn’t nominated for Best Actor in a Limited
Series by the Critics Choice. Egerton is
a shoo-in for a nomination.
Woody Harrelson, White
House Plumbers
Yes, I know the world
doesn’t think that highly of Woody Harrelson the individual after his monologue
on SNL this February. But I’ve always been able to separate the artist
from the art and objectively, Harrelson’s work as Howard Hunt in White House
Plumbers was one of the triumphs of acting so far in 2023. It’s impossible
to imagine anyone other than Harrelson playing Hunt the way he was written: there
are few actors comfortable in both drama and comedy the way that Harrelson has
balanced the two over his long career.
And more than any of the other characters, he had to keep switching from
one to the other, sometimes in the same two minutes, throughout the farce and
tragedy that we saw Hunt go through. He
believed with absolutely sincerity in what he was doing and he and the people
he hired were absolutely incompetent in every way. Hunt came across as a man who was a failure in
everything – as a conspirator, as a husband and father, as a friend, as a true
believer, and in perhaps the biggest gut punch of all, not even his greatest
portrayal seemed to matter in the grand scheme of things to anybody. I actually felt sorry for this man who tried
to destroy the Republic when this series was over and given what we know about
Hunt, that’s a real credit to Harrelson.
Daniel Radcliffe, Weird:
The Al Yankovic Story
I am actually in favor of
Radcliffe getting nominated here for reasons beyond his performance in the
title role. Ever since Radcliffe left his role as Harry Potter, it has freed
him to some truly magnificent work throughout the last decade allowing him to
show a range I just didn’t think the Boy Who Lived was capable of. He has shown subtlety when it comes to horror
movies, a certain balance as an awkward romantic lead and perhaps most
impressively has demonstrated remarkable ability in television as a comic
performer. His work over three seasons of the criminally underrated Miracle
Workers has shown some of the greatest comedy that television has been
capable of. Radcliffe deserves the
nomination for that work and for showing that the man you’d think least capable
of playing Weird Al can do anything.
Michael Shannon, George
& Tammy
The Emmys really owe Michael
Shannon a lot. (So do the Oscars but that’s another story.) Ever since he
created the incredible Nelson Van Algren, the morally upright prohibition agent
who eventually found himself becoming a criminal on Boardwalk Empire, I
found it absurd the Emmys never nominated him for anything. Then they ignored
him for his sterling work on Waco
as the hostage negotiator who
is overruled by the FBI. Then they ignored him for his incredibly subtle and
comic performance as the grieving father on Nine Perfect Strangers (though
to be fair, they ignored pretty much everybody). Well, the Emmys is really going
to have to do some contorting to ignore him for his role in George and Tammy
in a few weeks, particularly since they’re certainly going to acknowledge
his co-lead Jessica Chastain (who we will get to, believe me). Shannon gave what
was his typically magnificent understated performance as George Jones, the king
of Country music who fell in love with Tammy Wynette and the two of them became
the first couple of Nashville – before George’s drinking destroyed their
marriage and helped wreck his career. I
have been watching Shannon for fifteen years, I didn’t know that in addition to
everything else he could sing perfectly or at least do a reasonable facsimile. Ideally, the entire series would be nominated
for Best Limited Series and there would be nods for many of the other actors.
But they will recognize Chastain and they need to for Shannon. In this case,
the Emmys need to stand by your man.
Steven Yeun, Beef
Yes, I never liked The Walking
Dead so I basically was never among the people who mourned the beating of Glen
to death. And I certainly would never
have advocated for Emmy nominations for it or the show. That doesn’t mean I can’t
recognize a great actor or a great performance. And Steven Yeun’s work as Danny
Cho in Beef is without question, one of the best of 2023. Danny comes across initially in Beef as
more sympathetic than Amy in the first few episodes and halfway through the
series we still feel more compassion for him. Danny has been broken by life
more than Amy has: we see him attempting suicide in the season premiere, collapsing
into tears at church and unable to carry on with a scam when he comes to
realize the loneliest of the man he’s going to victimize. But he’s also capable
of being a bastard to his brother, lying to his cousins and swindling a church
to achieve his dreams. It’s a very complicated performance but Yeun makes it both
searing and hysterical all at once. Yeun is rising very quickly as a
possibility to win Best Actor over the long-time favorite Peters. I can’t argue
he doesn’t deserve too.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Justin Theroux, White
House Plumbers
In another world both
Theroux and Woody Harrelson would be nominated for Best Actor in this category.
Of course, in a better world, Theroux would have received at least one Emmy
nomination and maybe even an award for his incredible work in The Leftovers,
one of the most underrecognized series on HBO in the past decade. (Theroux
was nominated for one Critics Choice Award at least and he did win an award
from the Online Film and Television Association.) But this sadly has been the
fate of Theroux through his career in Television, he is always part of great
television (Six Feet Under, John Adams) but is perennially overlooked.
You’d think that would be hard to for his utterly hysterical performance as Gordon
Liddy where Theroux throws his usual restraint to the wind and utterly chews
the scenery in every moment on his screen, when he somehow manages to be restrained
and over-the-top in every scene he’s in, when he seems to perfectly clued in and
clueless at the same time. But then, I pretty much thought the same thing when
Shea Whigham did so with the character in Gaslit and the Emmys chose to
ignore him, too. I think it’s likely that, given the showier performances in
this category, Theroux will be overlooked (though its hard to not to watch him
and not consider it showy) but really, he deserves to be there.
Tomorrow, I take on Best
Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie. Expect even more disagreements with the
field.
Support The WGA!
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