Just as with everything
regarding drama, this category will be filled almost entirely with new faces.
Unlike all previous categories the end-of-year awards shows have given us a
clear front-runner who is almost certain to win the Emmy this year.
As is frequently
the case, the Supporting Actress category will be filled with some of the
greatest character actresses working today. Most of the selections I make are
already heavy favorites for nominations but there are two critical underdogs
that I’m going to pull for here. Here are my choices.
Christine Baranski,
The Gilded Age
Has there been a
performer who has done more to stride the era of Peak TV more than Christine
Baranski – and walked away with so little recognition? She was Leonard’s mother
on Big Bang Theory, played Diane Lockhart for seven seasons on The
Good Wife and six more on The Good Fight. And yet somehow she still
only has the single Emmy she got for her work on Cybil before all that
even began. She received six consecutive Emmy nominations for The Good Wife and
didn’t win a single one (in fairness, she lost twice to Anna Gunn, once to
Archie Panjabi and once to Margo Martindale for Justified and there were
many other brilliant performers in each category, so it’s hard to blame the
Emmys). Like the rest of the cast of The Good Fight she couldn’t buy an
Emmy nomination and that’s another travesty.
One can’t
exactly call Agnes the role of a lifetime for a performers who’s played some of
the most iconic characters in TV history but it’s clearly the meatiest role. Her
scowl and the way she delivers some of the most incredible putdowns I’ve heard
any character say, the way she looks down on progress as if she will be driven
kicking and screaming, makes her hysterical. But there is a heart beneath that
exterior: we see in her interactions with Peggy at a time when most women didn’t
consider those kind of people human, her affection for her nephew and the way
she clearly wants the best for her family, even if she can’t show it. The
moment she appeared at Ada’s wedding was one of the most moving moments of all
of the 2023 and her treatment of her sister in the aftermath profound. It is
clearly her time to win an Emmy, and if it doesn’t happen this year, well, this
role guarantees she will.
Elizabeth
Debicki, The Crown
Debicki was the
outlier in the end of year TV awards, the one performer from a series that
would be eligible for this year’s Emmys to dominate the remaining awards. She
took the Supporting Actress in a Drama prize from the Golden Globes and The
Critics Choice and was stunned when she ended up taking the Best Female
Performance prize over Sarah Snook in Succession. Now she is the overwhelming
front-runner for the Emmy for her work in The Crown and its hard to
argue she hasn’t earned it.
Debicki was the
sole actor from The Crown to earn an Emmy nomination last year and while
critics were divided over whether the quality has dropped in the last two
seasons, no one has argued over the caliber of Debicki’s work as Princess
Diana. Her role in Season 6 was, by necessity, much briefer than last year and
much of it is clouded over the fact of her final episode when she appeared as a
spirit to both Elizabeth and Charles, a trick that many considered a cheat by
Morgan. But few could argue that Debicki’s work is unworthy of a prize. Over
the last two seasons, it has become increasingly clear that Morgan has been
showing how fundamentally outmoded the institution of the monarchy is; so
broken it corrupts every element within it. Diana was the clearest victim of it
as early as Season 4 and in the final season we see the tragedy of it. Morgan
covered this ground before, of course, but it didn’t resonate quite the same
way as here.
Debicki has
deserved recognition from the Emmys since her brilliant work in The Night
Manager and like so many others in the cast, she more than deserves to go
out with a win.
Aunjanue Ellis, Justified:
City Primeval
I honestly think
Ellis-Taylor would have a far better chance of earning a nomination had she not
classified herself as an actress rather than a supporting actress. I can see
why she would: she was nominated for a Critics Choice Award as Best Actress,
but I think her chances would improve if she is included here.
Because no one
who saw City Primeval can deny her work as Carolyn Wilder was the heart
of the limited series. We saw early on she was in a situation she absolutely
didn’t want to be in, but she was as ruthless in the courtroom as Raylan and
Boyd were on the street. And it was a bold mood of the show to cast Ellis in
this role, considering that Justified has never had the best record with
African-American characters in the original show. Wilder serves as the
counterargument to everything fans have been rooting for when she tells Raylan:
“Not all of us can’t get angry the same way!” and there’s volumes in
that truly makes us wonder at something that – truthfully – fans like myself
didn’t think of watching the original series.
Ellis-Taylor has
over the last few years become one of the most sought after actresses in TV and
film and I want her to get nominated. This category might seem like a demotion,
but it would give her the recognition she deserved.
Moeka Hoshi, Shogun
A revolutionary thing
about Shogun was how dynamic and active so many of the female characters
were. It may therefore seem counterintuitive to argue for a nomination for
Hoshi, whose Fuji seemed by far the most frail in the entire series.
But Hoshi, like
the character she played, was always capable of surprise. Her husband and son
were forced to kill themselves in seppuku at the start of the series and she
spent so much of it wanting to join them. She was persuaded to serve as
Blackthorne’s consort, a role she didn’t relish even at the start. But one of
the nicer elements of this series was watching the friendship build between the
two: the way Blackthorne grew to gradually respect this woman and turn to her
in a way he couldn’t really even turn to anybody. In the final scenes when
Blackthorne tells her Fuji will be ‘good nun’ and then helps her dispose of the
ashes of her son and husband, there’s a humanity to it that is missing from
much of the brilliance of the final episode.
There are more
brilliant performances in Shogun but Hoshi’s character had the most
positive arc of all of them. You saw a woman who spent much of the series
wanting only to die end it with a reason to live. That itself goes against much
of what we see in Peak TV.
Lesley Manville,
The Crown
Princess
Margaret has been the most tragic character that The Crown has shown us over its six seasons,
someone who became a victim of ‘the system’ early and has been declining ever
since. It has been a measure of the series that with each incarnation Morgan
has cast an actor who is more detached from it. In the first two seasons
Vanessa Kirby played a vibrant Margaret who lost the man she loved and married
someone unworthy of her. In the next two, Helena Bonham-Carter brilliantly
played an increasingly jaded Margaret as her second marriage imploded, her problems
with alcohol became harder to hide, and she began to increasingly fall apart.
By the end of Season 4, she knew just how much this system destroyed the family
but was unable to leave it.
Now in the final
two seasons, the brilliant character actress Lesley Manville played Margaret as
someone who can barely even be a figurehead. The alcohol glass is always prominent,
she can barely be allowed to pose for pictures, and its clear to everyone that
she’s basically a living statue. Manville has spent the last two seasons showing
us go into her inevitable decline and collapse, which was more sad that Diana’s
death because it comes as a tragedy of a live that has been lived in service to
a system that destroyed her and gave her nothing in return.
In another
year Manville would be the front-runner for the Emmy in this category.
But just as in life, it has been the fate of those who portray Margaret to be
overlooked for a brighter sun in the category: Vanessa Kirby lost her only Emmy
nomination to Thandiwe Newton in Westworld and Bonham-Carter lost most
famously to Gillian Anderson for her extraordinary performance as Margaret
Thatcher. But those who watch Manville can’t forget Margaret even though so
much of our world has.
Cynthia Nixon, The
Gilded Age
It’s conceivable
so much of the political controversy that has surrounded Nixon, particularly
over the past year, may cause the Emmys to pause before they nominate her in
this category. There’s no other reason she might be overlooked on the caliber
of her work.
Like all the
actresses on this show, Nixon is extraordinary but while all of the other
female characters are so dynamic they cut a swath through the scenery, Ada has spent
her life in the shadow of her sister to the point that she almost seems an
afterthought. This is a testament to Nixon, who has made a history of playing
dynamic characters going back to her iconic work on Sex and the City, that
we completely believe her as Ada. In the second season she found love in the
most unexpected of places – an Episcopal minister from Boston (perhaps Robert
Sean Leonard can earn a Guest Actor nomination?) and they had a whirlwind
romance that led to superb work. Ada doubted the possibility she could ever find
happiness, was terrified to leave Agnes, and on her wedding day was moved when
she showed up. Then of course came the tragedy that followed and she lost the
man she loved before she even got to know him. And most wonderfully in the
final episode we saw the wonderful possibility of a reversal of power that all
fans of Ada look forward to in Season 3.
I have issues
with Nixon’s politics myself but I’ve always been able to separate that from
the performers and Nixon deserves a nomination.
Kristen Scott
Thomas, Slow Horses
For thirty years
it has been the fate of Kristen Scott-Thomas to be the bridesmaid and never the
bride. Now as Diana Taverner, the ice queen of ‘The Park’ she has the kind of
role made for her.
As I mentioned
in an earlier review of the show, I don’t know how long its been since there’s
been a character on Peak TV that ‘I Loved To Hate’. But Thomas’s work as ‘Lady
Di’ clearly merits it. She is the living example of the Peter Principle, proof
that meritocracy plays second fiddle to being a political animal. This is scary
enough to see at a corporate level; it’s been appalling to see it done for a
woman who wants to be in charge of Britain’s security almost entirely for a
political point, not because she’s good at it or even cares for the nation’s
security that much.
She spent much
of Season 3 struggling for control of MI5 (I haven’t finished the season so I
don’t know how it yet ends). I’d hope that it would end with her being made humble
but given the nature of the show, she’ll probably end up being Home Secretary
by the time it ends. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a huge amount of fun to watch
her turn up her nose at everybody and every single encounter she has with Gary
Oldman. She will get a nomination, probably the prize itself someday and she
deserves it – even if Taverner doesn’t.
Sonja Sohn, Will
Trent
And speaking of
bad ass bosses, let’s close out my predictions with what of the baddest on the
block: Sonja Sohn’s incredible work as Amanda Wagner on Will Trent. I’m
grateful that the writers have softened Amanda just enough to make her likable;
if her character was like the one in the book, the viewer would hate her as
much everyone in Slaughter’s series does.
Through Sohn’s
work this season we’ve seen softer sides of her – as well as a deeply flawed
side, when we learned that she reacted to an assault on her by framing her
attacker her for possession and putting him in prison for thirty years. She’s
also had to deal with the fallout from her decision to hide the identity of
Will’s parents from him in the first season and we’ve been watching this play
out over the season. We also have watched her blunder so many times with Faith,
whose relationship has always been problematic, and tried to build a
relationship with Angie – only to have it explode. In the last moment of Season
2, we saw an Amanda who looked shaken in a way we haven’t before and its credit
to Sohn that it was completely believable.
Ever since she
burst on to the scene in her iconic role as Kima Greggs on The Wire, Sohn
has deserved some kind of recognition from the Emmys. This isn’t quite as
revolutionary a role but it is a brilliant one and it deserves a nomination at
least.
FOR YOUR
CONSIDERATION
Saskia Reeves, Slow
Horses
Much of the cast
of Slow Horses will deservedly earn nominations this year. But it is
unlikely that Reeves’s work as Catherine Standish will do so, at least this
year.
That makes a
certain amount of sense: we spend so much of the show thinking that Standish is
just a doddy matron there to clean up Lamb’s liquor bottles and keep the other screwups
in line. But every episode or so we see just how deadly competent she is at her
job compared to so many of the younger forces and indeed her own boss. This
season marking a turning point in their relationship as she finally learned the
truth of Parkhurst’s death, an action that helped bring her to Slough House and
that she’s been carrying for decades. It was a stark moment for a character whose
always seemed so frail and we’re terrified of what happens next.
Reeves has been
one of the most overlooked British Actresses in history (I’ve written about her
work before in a far different context) and I think its time she gets
recognition.
That’s it for
Drama. Next week I start on comedy, where I actually can speak with more
certainty than this category.
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