Eight nominees
will be in this category. But which eight is the question? Last year all eight
were from either The White Lotus or Succession; the previous year
Severance was a major player and such stalwarts in this field such as Better
Call Saul, The Handmaid’s Tale and This is Us are all ineligible or
gone from the airwaves. Only The Morning Show and The Crown, both
of which have had multiple nominees in the past are eligible and in the latter
case, it will be a different set of actors.
So there will be
new faces in this category almost by default. The question is which actors and
how many will come from the same shows, considering the Emmys long history of
rewarding multiple performers from the same series in these categories. I’m
going to make some educated guesses and go out on a limb on some others. Both of
the Supporting categories will have a lot of room for error but I think you all
know that going in.
Khalid Abdalla, The
Crown
The moment we
met Dodi in Season Five’s ‘Mou-Mou’ we got a sinking feeling in our stomachs:
we knew how this story was going to play out and how tragically it would end. We’ve
met numerous tragic characters in the history of The Crown but there
have been few we felt genuine pain for: Dodi spend his entire life as an
outsider and the only crime he committed was bringing the woman he loved
happiness. It is a measure of Abdalla’s work that, like so many other
characters we’ve met over the series, we watch him and frequently forget the
tragedy fate has in story for him. Elizabeth Debicki has been dominated the Supporting
actress prizes leading up to the Emmys and she has always gone out of her way
to thank Abdalla for being part of it. Abdalla was nominated for Best
Supporting Actor at the Critics Choice awards last year and he is likely to be
on the podium this year.
Tadanobu Asano, Shogun
Even among all
the great performances on display in Shogun Asano’s work as Yabushige
quickly became one of the more beloved. Part of it is no doubt in a world where
everybody kept their cards close to their vests, Asano had the job of being the
easiest character to read on the series. His character was also the source of a
great deal of entertainment: Yabushige was so desperate to stay alive that he
would double cross anyone to save his own skin to the point that Toranaga’s endgame
was in part because of his utter faith is Yabushige’s cowardice – a faith that
turned out to be rewarded.
And I’ll admit
there was a lot of fun to be enjoyed from Asano’s work: Yabushige was always
wearing his terror and fear so openly that it became almost comic to watch him
react overtime. But there was a sorrow about it to. Yabushige knew every time
he did so, he was only extending his life a little longer and by the time he
came back, he knew what was coming. He more than deserves a reward for
providing so much fun.
Billy Crudup, The
Morning Show
Of all the potential
nominees in this category Crudup is the only one who has the added benefit of
having been nominated – and in fact won – in this category previously. In the
first season of The Morning Show, his producer Cory Ellison would win
the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in 2020. Crudup is the sole member of the
cast who was nominated both years the show was eligible and indeed has more
nominations and awards then anyone else in the entire cast. He has been
nominated for two Golden Globes for Supporting Actor, has been nominated by the
SAG awards every year he has been eligible and has won two Critics Choice
Awards in this category. Indeed, earlier this year his victory in a category
that Matthew
MacFayden had been winning everywhere else came as a shock even to him.
It's a certainty
that Crudup will be nominated this year and he ranks as the overwhelming
frontrunner right now, mainly because nothing succeeds like success. Whether he
will be the sole nominee in this category or he will be joined by his co-stars
is an open question: right now Jon Hamm’s odds are improving and Mark Duplass
has been nominated in this category before. But its hard to deny the certainty.
He’ll probably break into song.
Mark-Paul Gosselaar,
Found
The more I
watched Gosselaar work in Found I knew this was a performance that
deserved awards. Yes I know that Found is a network drama and we all
know what the Emmys think of those. But don’t kid yourself if Found had
debuted on a streaming or cable service, the Emmy chatter for Gosselaar’s work
as Sir would have become within days of its debut.
Because the
character of Sir is one for the ages. He’s already one of the great villains of
the last decade, someone so deranged and monstrous that you find yourself
wondering how he could ever passed as normal. Then as the flashbacks go back
further and further into he and Gabi’s shared past, you see just how Gabi fell
under his spell and just how he managed to make it pass in his life. When we
contrast with the scenes in Gabi’s basement where we see the captor held
captive, we see not only how things have changed but how they haven’t. We see as
much as how Gabi feels she has taken back power from the man who took her
humanity Sir never makes her forget that she as much a monster as him. She
spent the entire season denying it and she can’t pretend it anymore.
And when you
contrast it with Gosselaar entire previous career on TV – going all the way
back to Saved by The Bell – it is impossible to argue that this is a performance
for the ages. I have no illusions that the odds for Gosselaar receiving an Emmy
nomination are far from possible but I don’t care. He’s earned it and he should
win.
Nathan Lane, The
Gilded Age
Just like
everywhere else, Nathan Lane has been in television forever. As you’d expect
when Peak TV became a thing, his roles increased and his range became superb. He
had a brilliant mix of comedy and drama as Clarke Hayden on The Good Wife for
two brilliant seasons, played F. Lee Bailey in The People V. O.J. Simpson and
Pepper on Modern Family. But his track record with the Emmys was
terrible in twenty years, he received six nominations for Guest Actor and didn’t
win one.
Then in the past
few years his luck changed. He finally earned his Emmy for playing Teddy Dimas
in an extraordinary mix of comedy and drama in Only Murders in the Building.
And then he took on a different kind of eccentric as Ward McCallister, the
society insider who Bertha Russell has been leaning on so extensively in The
Gilded Age. There are so many Broadway legends working in Gilded Age it’s
hard to note whose work is the best among them, but just like McCallister
himself, you can’t ignore Lane’s extraordinary work.
Lane has been
moving up steadily in this category at Gold Derby. He’s now ranked sixth. I
fully acknowledge that there are many great supporting acting performances
deserving of recognition – Michael Cerveris work this year was a sad and
redeeming performance. But Lane is the most likely and in a way the most worthy.
Jack Lowden, Slow
Horses
When you’re
working with some of the greatest actors today, you have to up your game. When
one of your main jobs is to mix a measure of utter disgust for your boss’ table
manners and admiration for his cunning, it’s even harder. And in addition to
all that, you have to be the action hero in a show when everyone else is safe
behind the scenes. Those are just some of the reasons I have loved watching
Jack Lowden’s brilliant work as River Cartwright on Slow Horses the red-headed
stepchild (both literally and figuratively) of the Park and Slough House: River
is still too wet behind the ears to know what he doesn’t know and even after three
seasons, still too far behind the manipulations going on around him. He has
begun to trust Jackson Lamb more than he wants to admit but is still chafing at
the lack of trust anyone has in him. He deeply wants respect in a unit where
there is none given within or without and its not clear if he realizes he’ll ever
get it.
However respect
for Lowden, as with Slow Horses, is rising in the estimation of awards
shows. He has been nominated twice for the BAFTA TV award in this category, and
this year was the only acting nod. He’s slowly climbing in the ranks of
nominees of Gold Derby, currently ranked seventh. I suspect if he gets in, he’ll
be in for awhile and he’s earned it.
Jonathan Pryce, The
Crown
It seemed a
certainty going into the leadup for the Emmy nominations last year that
Jonathan Pryce would receive a Supporting Actor nod for his brilliant work as
Prince Philip. He had already been nominated for a Golden Globe and a Critics
Choice Award in that category and received another nomination from the Astras.
Furthermore, his predecessors in this role, Matt Smith and Tobias Menzies has
each received nominations from the Emmys as well, with Menzies prevailing. And
then the nominations came and like everyone who didn’t have the fortune to star
in an HBO series, Pryce was left on the outside in. There were numerous
egregious oversights in this category – particularly John Lithgow and Giancarlo
Esposito and Jonathan Banks – but Pryce was the most inexplicable to me.
In the final
year of The Crown Pryce’s chances would seem to be infinitely better (though
the fact he was ignored by the Critics Choice does give me brief pause) But
like West, Pryce is more than overdue recognition for any form of award,
considering he has been one of the greatest actors in British history for
nearly forty years. His guest work in River Cartwright’s grandfather in Slow
Horses demonstrate his versatility as a performer as well. I’m not saying
Pryce will end up taking the prize, but he is definitely going to be there.
Bradley Whitford,
Parish
Among the eight
nominees I’m pushing Whitford has less of a chance than anyone but Gosselaar.
That said, I’m hoping that his past history with the Emmys going back to The
West Wing might be enough to put him over the top.
Few question
that Bradley Whitford is one of the most gifted television performers in
history. He’s one of the few actors who have earned Emmys for playing roles in
three different TV shows: most famously for The West Wing and The
Handmaid’s Tale; less well known for his brilliant turn in Transparent. And
those are just his most famous roles: he was by far the best thing about the
disastrous show Happyish, the original Red John in The Mentalist and
has done good work in so many mixtures of genres from Studio 60 to The
Good Guys to Trophy Wife. So it should count for a lot to say I’ve
never seen him play a role quite like Anton, the ruthless New Orleans crime
lord in Parish, Gray’s former boss who is willing to hold his family
hostage with a hurt tone, who outmaneuvers the crime family that Gray has been
working for and who thinks he holds the upper hand over the next attorney
general – until Gray destroys him.
Whitford’s track
record with the Emmys is great already, so I’ll be fine if he’s passed over.
But I think he deserves yet another nomination for another of the great shows
he done.
FOR YOUR
CONSIDERATION
Boyd Holbrook, Justified:
City Primeval
There are
criminals and there are villains. And then there’s Clement Mansell who Elmore Leonard
christened “The Oklahoma Wildman.” For decades Leonard fans have been waiting
to see Mansell recreated. Then came City Primeval and they – and TV
viewers – got what they’d been looking for.
Justified has seen some of
the greatest villains in the history of Peak TV but Raylan has never had to
deal with one more absolutely terrifying then a man who thinks rules are just a
made-up word, that people only exist in his world only to be killed or manipulated,
and that the law is something that applies to everyone but him. Few scenes have
been more terrifying then when Raylan walks into a hotel lobby to see his teenage
daughter sitting next to the man he’s already suspects of multiple murders and
who seems to want him to make his classic move of drawing – because he knows he
can win.
There were great
supporting performances in City Primeval and I would be fine if Vondie
Curtis-Hall got a nomination. But my heart belongs to Holbrook in this series.
Like all fans of Justified, we all loved getting Wild with him.
Tomorrow I wrap
up this part of my recap by dealing with my picks for Supporting Actress.
No comments:
Post a Comment