Some of the clear favorites
in this series are nominees from shows I haven’t seen. Emily Blunt has been an
early favorite for her work in Amazon’s The English and Riley Keough
increasingly looks like a frontrunner for the title singer in Daisy Jones
and The Six. I’ve already seen the first episode of the latter and admit
she might be a force. However, as before, I intend to stick with some
outsiders, some of whom I favor more for their work as actresses in other
series than the actual show they’re in and some of whom I have started to come
around too. Here are my favorites
Lizzy Caplan, Fleishmann
is in Trouble
As I said in my initial
review of Fleishmann is in Trouble, I am not a fan of this series. In
fact, I’m desperately hoping that the oddsmakers are wrong about it so I don’t
have to watch the rest of this series. And as
I mentioned in the review, I felt that a major problem with this series
was Caplan and the overbearing, usually pointless narration that I’ve seen
throughout the first two episodes. Why then am I advocating for her nomination?
Restitution. As those of you who may have been following my column for awhile
might be aware of, I thought that one of the best series of the 2010s was
Showtime’s Masters of Sex an
extraordinarily well done series that the Emmys essentially ignored during its four
year run, with the exception of several Guest Acting awards. Caplan’s work as Virginia Johnson was the equal,
if not superior, of any of the actresses who received nominations and awards
during this period, certainly Viola Davis or Elisabeth Moss, yet she received
one nomination and no awards. The Emmys
needs to make it right, and like all awards shows, the Emmys often give
nominations and awards for an actor for a series to make up for ignoring them
for another. (I’m pretty sure that’s why
so many actresses have won for The
Handmaid’s Tale; certainly Ann Dowd and Alexis Bleidel.) Caplan deserves a
nomination. I will be less angry if she gets nominated than anyone else.
Jessica Chastain, George
and Tammy
One of the greater travesties
of last year’s nominations was that Anna
Chlumsky and Lily James were nominated over the far superior work of Jessica
Chastain for her incredible performance in Scenes from a Marriage an
extraordinary HBO limited series the Emmys essentially ignored. That Chastain
was nominated for a Golden Globe makes it all the more appalling. It will be
harder to see the Emmys ignore Chastain for her incredible work as Tammy
Wynette in George and Tammy and to be fair, it looks like its being set-up
that way: Chastain upset frontrunner Amanda Seyfried at the SAG awards earlier
this year. Is it fair to consider her work superior to the performance she gave
as Miri last year? In a sense, the two roles have a parallel: both Miri and
Tammy are complicated career women who are drawn to men in their lives and find
themselves forced to leave them. Of course, Miri didn’t have to sing some of
the most iconic songs in country music as well as Chastain did here. Right now Chastain is the overwhelming favorite
for Best Actress. There are few who deserve it more.
Betty Gilpin, Mrs.
Davis
I’ve always been a huge
fan of Betty Gilpin who has been a co-star of so many great TV series over the
last decade. Her work on Nurse Jackie was superb and she certainly
deserved at least one Emmy for her masterful work as Liberty Belle on the gone
too soon GLOW and like everyone else in the cast, she should have gotten
a nomination for her work as Mo Dean in Gaslit. And this year, she got
the chance to be at the center of what is, at least so far, the most insane series
on television. Seriously how else do you describe a show in which she plays a
nun traveling the globe to destroy an artificial intelligence that involves finding
the Holy Grail? It remains to be scene if this series will come back for a
second season but let’s let it fall under the limited series guideline and give
Gilpin a nomination for managing to treat this utterly insane situation with
complete seriousness and giving us an anchor to hold to. Gilpin should get
nominated for this work.
Elisabeth Olsen, Love
and Death
In an odd way Olsen’s
performance in Love & Death has parallels to that of Wanda in her
previous Emmy nomination in Wandavision. Watching her play Candy Montgomery
you could tell that she like Wanda Maximoff she was burying her real emotions
in a false front and revealing them in secret. Candy’s actions were nowhere
near as destructive as what we saw in Wandavision, but they were no less
devastation to the town around her. Olsen gave one of the best performances I have
seen in 2023 so far as a woman who wanted more from her lot in life, seemed to
move on from her dalliance with a neighbor and that found herself facing the
ultimate horror. I find something of a parallel to Wanda in her roles in the
second half: Candy is trying so best to refrain from expressing the effects of
an underlying trauma she seems practically inhuman, particularly to her
neighbors and the jury adjudicating her case. This is work more than worthy of
a nomination. Perhaps the prize itself.
Sydney Sweeney, Reality
Much as I loathed Sydney
Sweeney for her work on Euphoria, I have since come to see that
particular series is an anchor on its cast. Her work on The White Lotus was
an act of hysterical privilege and in the title role in this brilliant HBO TV
movie, I was riveted by her performance from beginning to end. In the filmed
version of a play, which in itself is the recording of the FBI interview with
Reality Winner, prior to this whistleblower’s arrest, Sweeney was utterly riveting
playing a worker at the NSA trying to deny her involvement in one of the
biggest government leaks for which she received the heaviest sentence ever
given to a whistleblower. The movie
itself is a triumph (I expect it to be nominated for Best TV Movie) but as
brilliant as it technically it could not work without Sweeney’s remarkable
performance as a woman who the government does not think this is typical
behavior for who she is. HBO used to the gold standard for movies like this and
films – and performances like Sweeney’s – are prime examples they still have it
at times.
Ali Wong, Beef
Ali Wong has been
world-renowned for being one of the most famous Asian-American comedians
working. I knew nothing about her work going into Beef, which meant than
even more than with Steven Yeun that her work as Amy Lau was even more
impressive. Amy initially comes across
as far less sympathetic than Danny: she’s the aggressor in the road rage
incident that precipitates everything, she treats her husband with something
like disdain, she has no problem catfishing Danny’s brother or destroying his
truck or doing everything in her power to wreck his life. But throughout the
series we do see signs of a woman under enormous pressure, unable to feel any
real calm except through a false front, and whose desire to have it all
unleashes immense chaos among everyone around her. Wong’s performance is
frankly the more hysterical of the two leads. This might have hurt her in
previous years, but as we saw last year with The White Lotus the Emmys
are more inclined to look on people behaving badly and hysterically. She will
be nominated. Will she win? We’ll see.
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Kathryn Hahn, Tiny Beautiful
Things
There are few actors in
the era of Peak TV who have done more brilliant work – or received enough
credit for it – than Kathryn Hahn. Her
hysterical work as a political campaign manager in Parks and Rec, her
superb performance as Raquel the rabbi in Transparent, her undervalued
work in such series as Mrs. Fletcher, I Love Dick, I Know This Much is True.
I was hoping that she would finally receive her due from the Emmys two
years ago for her incredible performance as Agatha Harkness on Wandavision where
she won awards from every group from the HCA to the MTV Movie awards. I’m glad
Julianne Nicholson did win; I just wish she hadn’t to beat Kathryn Hahn. So
perhaps restitution could be made by nominated her for her work as Claire Pierce,
who becomes a world revered advice columnist eve as her life is falling apart.
It’s a perfect mix of comedy and drama and basic emotion; the kind of thing
that Hahn has done so perfectly for the better part of two decades. It’s the
kind of role she’s perfected and keeps getting ignored for. It’s likely to
happen here too. But it’s the kind of Tiny Beautiful Thing we expect from her.
Tomorrow I deal with Best
Supporting Actor in A Limited Series/TV Movie. Here I might stick closer to the
rank and file then before.
Support The WGA!
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