Author’s Note: I’ve
since seen the first episode of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I would be more than
fine if the series and the two leads Donald Glover and Maya Erskine got
nominated. However, I’m going to proceed and not alter my choices.
OUTSTANDING LEAD
ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Praise the lord
Zendaya isn’t here. It’s no secret that I loathe all things Euphoria and
I truly believe Zendaya has twice taken Best Actress Emmys from infinitely more
deserving candidates. With The Handmaid’s Tale ineligible this will lead
to a vast array of new faces here as well. I approve of most of the probable
nominees but I will have some alternates. Let’s go.
Jennifer
Aniston, The Morning Show
In 2020 the
world was sure that Jennifer Aniston was going to get a Best Actress Emmy in
Draam to bookend her one for Friends for her work on The Morning
Show. She won the SAG Award for Best Actress and the world was overjoyed.
Then came Emmy night…and she lost to Zendaya.
When the second
season of The Morning Show finally aired in 2021, many expected her to
return to the ranks in 2022. However they chose to nominate her co-lead Reese
Witherspoon (who many thought should have been nominated with Aniston the first
time.) Witherspoon also lost to Zendaya.
Now it’s Season
3. Aniston has already received a Golden Globe nomination, a SAG award
nomination and won the People’s Choice Award for Best Dramatic performance. The
momentum for her has been building all year and she is the overwhelming frontrunner
for Best Actress. I’d say that it’s past time for Aniston to receive
recognition for her work in what was a glorious return to television (and for
the record if they chose to nominate Witherspoon, I have no objections) And as
an added bonus, Zendaya isn’t eligible. Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t
other very strong candidates running against her but could she be more
overdue for a win?
Carrie Coon, The
Gilded Age
Ever since The
Leftovers debuted Carrie Coon has been one of the greatest actresses in the
history of Peak TV. Her work in the third season of Fargo was a
masterclass as was her incredible performance in the second season of The
Sinner. And yet to date, she has received just one Emmy nomination for her
work in Fargo. This is a travesty nearly as great as ignoring Dominic
West.
Coon’s chances
for a nomination have been rising along with the probability of The Gilded
Age’s likelihood of dominating the Emmy nominations and I couldn’t be more
thrilled. To call this Coon’s best performance is an exaggeration to be sure
but in a series dominated by extraordinary actresses Coon has had to take her
already high game to a new level and she does in every scene she’s in. Watching
Bertha Russell ply her craft against the old guard of New York, engaging in the
Opera War and doing everything in her power to bend society to her will, she is
just as manipulative as so many antiheroes we’ve watched for twenty years. But
she has more of a moral compass and a soul and its clear, particularly with her
husband, that she does bleed. (I hope the Emmys can find room for Morgan
Spector somewhere.)
I want to see
her win and I hope this is the first of several nominations in this category.
She’s more than due.
Carrie Preston, Elsbeth
I see according
to Gold Derby that Carrie Preston is rising like a rocket in this category. A
month ago her odds at a nomination were 100-1, now there’ at 30-1 as she up to
eighth. There are several formidable nominees she may have to surpass but I
think, like the character she plays so well, that Preston has more than a few
cards up her sleeve.
First of all, of
course, is that she is the female heroine of her series, something almost no
one else ahead of her can claim. Natasha Lyonne was able to play a role almost
exactly like this in Poker Face to an Emmy nomination last year, and Preston
could do the same. Preston also has the advantage of having been nominated –
and won – for playing this character by the Emmys before. She won Best Guest
Actress in 2010 and was nominated twice more. This would give her a chance to join
the club of performers nominated for playing the same character twice in
different categories and the Emmys has been more than willing to do that over
the years, most recently for Uzo Aduba and Bradley Whitford. Finally Preston is
an industry veteran who has starred in so many other undervalued series such as
True Blood and Claws in a long career in television. When you put
all of those things together, I think there’s an excellent chance that Preston
will be among the nominees this year.
Anna Sawai, Shogun
I walked away
from Shogun with the absolute certainty that regardless of what you
thought of the ending Anna Sawai’s Miriko was the heart of the series. The show
had countless superb female performances but no one will question that Sawai’s
work was the most gripping from the beginning of the series until she left the
stage.
Throughout the
series you saw that Miriko was made of more steel then so many of the men
around her and clearly had a greater understanding of it then so many of the
lords. She had a greater understanding of honor than any character on the show
and a far greater willingness to sacrifice. Miriko had to be aware that she was
being used in the final parts as a pawn, despite Toranaga’s respect for her but
she embraced it with a willingness and boldness that none of the other
characters had. The final half-hour of her last episode was among the most
moving moments of 2024 so far as she seemed about to face a death she had been
wanting for years, had her life spared – and then in the final minute, let
herself go to it anyway.
Ever since Shogun
was moved to the Best Drama category Sawai has been rising like a rocket in
the possibility for a Best Actress Emmy. Of all the performers in Shogun hers
is the most deserving of an Emmy. I don’t know if she’ll win but no one would
doubt she’s earned it.
Imelda Staunton,
The Crown
Of all the major
exclusions in last year’s Emmy nominations – and there were a lot of outrages –
the one that shocked me the most was the fact that Imelda Staunton wasn’t
nominated for Best Actress. In the first four seasons of The Crown, the
two performers who had played her the previous season had each been nominated each
year they were eligible and both Claire Foy and Olivia Colman won a Best
Actress Emmy. Staunton had already been nominated for a Golden Globe earlier
that year and had been nominated for a BAFTA award. And yet when the
nominations came out Elisabeth Moss was there and she wasn’t. (All of the other
nominees were deserving.)
It’s going to be
much more difficult to ignore her this year. She’s already been nominated for a
Golden Globe and this time there was a SAG award nod to go with it. Considering
that this is the final season, the odds are excellent she’ll be nominated and
considering how much Elizabeth had to go through in the final season – the death
of Margaret, dealing with Diana’s death, and the controversial final moments – she
has a more than decent chance of winning. Every portrayer of Elizabeth has won
an Emmy for their final season on The Crown and Staunton could continue
the trend. But the Queen will be there. It’s certain
Emma Stone, The
Curse
At the 2024
Golden Globes Emma Stone joined an elite group of performers when she was
nominated for Lead Actress in both Movies and Television. Everyone noticed and
was overjoyed as she took the Best Actress prize for her work in Poor Things
and began a march to her second Best Actress Award at the age of 35.
Now Stone has a
chance to do something that only Helen Mirren did before her (and it may very
well happen twice this year, as we’ll see when we get to limited series): win
an Oscar and Emmy for acting in the same calendar year. And it would be for a
role that was, if anything, more challenging than her work as Bella in Poor
Things. Because for much of her career Emma Stone has played characters who
you automatically love or at least root for. And from the moment we met Whitney
in The Curse, it was very clear that she was playing one of the most
contemptible characters in her repertoire, someone who uses the aspect of being
a white savior and has clear racist values, someone who believes she is an
independent success, but whose parents are literally ensuring it, someone who
gives the perspective of being a loving wife but who wants the worship of her
husband. There’s an argument to be made Bella was the warmer character she’s played
in the past year.
It’s not clear
yet if there will be a second season of The Curse or if Stone will
appear in it. (She’s one of the few characters in Season 1 who still can.) But anyone
who saw her work this year can’t forget it. The entire series could make you uncomfortable
to watch and it was hardest to do it with Stone because we are built into like
her and Whitney seems to welcome your contempt. But it is a master class and
its deserves a nomination.
FOR YOUR
CONSIDERATION
Shanola Hampton,
Found
There were other
possibilities here: I seriously considered Erika Christensen for Will Trent and
Louise Jacobson’s work in The Gilded Age and both would be worthy
candidates. But if there’s a performance this year that demands an Emmy
nomination, it is the incredible work Shanola Hampton did in Found, the
NBC drama that made my top ten list this year.
Gabi Mosely is
an African-American woman in DC, but she inhabits a world Olivia Pope wouldn’t be
caught dead in. Yet she is just as ruthless and determined at her mission than
anyone of the leads in Shondaland and comes from a far darker world than any of
them. Hampton’s performance as a woman who survived a brutal abduction and year
in captivity was riveting and the twist that she had abducted her tormentor and
was holding him prisoner for all of Season 1 took us into the moral grey area that
shows like 24 occupied brilliantly. Every moment Hampton was onscreen
you were riveted by her work, watching the bold badass face that went up
against law enforcement and Sir, knowing it was a bluff that showed how brittle
and broken she still was.
Kerry Washington
and Viola Davis received multiple Emmy nominations for work in shows that were
infinitely less real than we’ve already seen in just thirteen episodes of Found.
Considering that Hampton, like Davis and Washington, is a performer whose
been working for more than fifteen years and never been recognized, I’d say she’s
as due for a nomination if not more so.
Tomorrow, I
start in with Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama. I know, this is going to
get complicated.
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