My Predictions (And Hopes) For The 2024 Emmy Nominations, Week 2, Part 4: Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy

 

I don’t know how many nominees  we will have in this category; we had seven last year and eight the year before. I’m going to be generous (as I always am) and give slots for eight.

As to which eight. Well, I think it’s pretty clear that several of the shows in this category can (and should) double dip. Some may deserve more nominations but I’m going to hold to my rule of two nominees per show in each category. And I should mention the nominees for shows I pick may not be the ones the Emmys do. So without further ado:

Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Hacks

I understand why so many people think the women of Hacks are the stars of the show – because they are. But as a result, little appreciation has been given to the two brilliant supporting actors who in their own ways makes Hacks a joy.

Now to be fair the Emmys did nominate Clemons-Hopkins for the first season of Hacks for his incredible work as Marcus, the African-American gay man who helped build Deborah Vance’s empire and who is proud to be her number 1 fans. To be unfair, they chose to ignore him for Season 2 – although to be fairer, there were a lot of good contenders from Barry and some of them will be listed below. But now that both Barry and Ted Lasso are gone, it is time for Clemons-Hopkins to return to the Emmys as a nominee. And we just keep learning more about him with each new season; we saw him working to get more designers in Deb’s empire; we saw his continued adventures with his mother and trivia team and at the end of the season he chose to march out on his own in another bold move. I don’t know what we’ll see of Marcus in Season 4 but Clemons-Hopkins deserves recognition.

Paul W. Downs, Hacks

Considering that Downs is not only one of the co-creators of Hacks but the husband of one of them, it’s not that he’s lacking for recognition from the Emmys. He won one for co-writing the pilot and he was nominated for another writing Emmy the following year and he has been nominated twice for producing it. Indeed, he’s actually gotten infinitely more recognition for Hacks from the writers and producers chair than he probably could ever get for his role as Jimmy: he’s won three WGA awards and when the show won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy in 2022, the prize would have gone to him. So perhaps it is asking too much for him to be nominated for his work as an actor as well. I mean Downs would be the first one to say that everyone else deserves more credit for Hacks success then him.

But that’s not at all fair for the man who has become the show secret weapon over the past three years as the increasingly, ridiculously beleaguered Jimmy, the agent who is always struggling for respect from every single person in the world, including his partner Kayla. His character is the only one in this show is always the figure of humiliation, and who will do everything to turn himself into a fool for his clients. I love to laugh at poor Jimmy who is trying so hard to succeed and seems to be surrounding by so many people who know his failings. I loved watching himself humiliate himself in pickleball against Helen Hunt, all the things he does to try and earn talent and of course when we met his Mommie Dearest Diedre Hall.

There’s no way Downs won’t be nominated either for writing or producing this year, so giving him an acting nod might be gilding the lily. But no one can pretend he’s not as great a comic actor as he is a writer. I think he’s earned it

Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear

Right now Moss-Bachrach is the overwhelming front-runner in this category to win. Of all the performers in this category, he is the only one to win any award: a Critics Choice Award for Supporting Actor in a Comedy. And I’ll admit I was over the moon when he managed to win last year for his incredible work as Richie, the deeply disturbed best friend of Jimmy who spent all of last season trying to deal with his loss by demeaning everyone but himself – until the season finale when he accepted responsibility.

So far in Season 2, Richie has continued to behave like an idiot but has already shown more growth. He knows how behind the times he is compared to this colleagues and it’s now clear that bluster was his way of compensating.  Every time Moss-Bachrach is onscreen, you can understand why The Bear is classified as a comedy: Richie is always the subject of humiliate, always wrong, always screwing up. And given that he managed his redemption of a sort in the classic Forks episode, I can understand why he might be the winner. And Richie – and Moss-Bachrach – always deserve a win.

Matty Matheson, The Bear

I acknowledge there may very well be more than two nominees from The Bear in this category and I’ll also acknowledge if it happens it will be deserved. But I don’t intend to violate my rule, so I’m going to stick to the one I want to see nominated instead some of the more likely ones. Don’t get me wrong I’d be fine with the incredible work of Lionel Boyce being recognized and I always love seeing Oliver Platt get nominated for anything. But I’m going for Matty Matheson for some very critical reasons.

First of all, astonishingly, Matheson’s work as Neil is his live-action debut as an actor. (He’s done some voice work in animation.) Second he is the only actual chef and restaurateur who has a role on Beef, which makes it all the more wonderful that he’s essentially playing a repairman on the show. And third, every time he appears onscreen, we’re reminded very clearly that The Bear is a comedy. And considering that most of that comes with his clashes with Richie – which no doubt has helped facilitate Moss-Bachrach’s Emmy last year and will help his prospects this year – attention should be paid. Admittedly, he’s also a producer of this series which means he’ll be recognized in some form. But a nomination would be nice from the guy who gets no respect.

Chris Perfetti, Abbott Elementary

I was irked – there’s really no other word for it – when Perfetti became the only acting nominee from Abbott Elementary to not get a second consecutive nomination. I blame the ridiculous amount of love for Ted Lasso on this, we all it had absolutely nothing to do with the decline in any part of Perfetti’s work.

And in Season 3 Jacob continues to delight in every single scene is. We love him as he tries to work behind the scenes to get Gregory and Janine together. We love the bromance he has with Gregory and we were kind of stunned to see the one that’s taken off with Lisa Ann Walter this year. We cried as he and his boyfriend dealt with their breakup and we watched as he tried to move forward. And we saw a man to everything he could to help Abbott from arranging a field trip to the playground which ended in hysteria. Really there is still nothing Perfetti can’t do which is absolutely why he deserves another nomination. Of course Jacob might feel guilty in being rewarded but Perfetti shouldn’t.

Paul Rudd, Only Murders in the Building

Only Murders in the Building clearly has some of the best writers in the world. Because they cast Paul Rudd as their murder victim in Season 3, turned him into someone everyone had a motive to kill and Rudd managed to play it perfectly. The nicest guy in Hollywood played someone you almost wanted to get killed.

On a separate note, Rudd is desperately lacking for recognition from, well, any awards show. This is even more remarkable for a man with such a long career but one in television as well as film. I’ve been saying he deserved an Emmy since his incredible guest spot on Parks and Rec (where he won a Best Guest Actor prize but astonishingly didn’t even get nominated for anything by the Emmys) was a part of the critically admired by quickly canceled Living With Yourself that got him a Golden Globe and Critics Choice nod but nothing from the Emmys, is a member of the 5-timers club on SNL, Reno 9-1-1 and really changed it up in The Shrink Next Door. This is nasty treatment for the nicest guy in Hollywood. It tells you something he’ll have to literally kill himself for a nomination.

Kenan Thompson, Saturday Night Live

I know. I’m the one who spent so much time arguing that the co-stars of SNL were taking up space that belonged to other performers in this category. But I think its safe to say that over the past few years I’ve seen the light. And watching SNL in what has been a rebuilding period it’s more than clear that it’s cast deserves recognition. I could pay tribute to any of the actors, including Bowen Yang, but at this point Thompson is clearly the one who deserves the most praise. I don’t know if at this point there’s anything he can do that I’m not stunned by any more, whether it was his work as Deion Sanders or Lamar Ball, or any of his astonishing sketch work. There is nothing he can’t do that doesn’t astonish me – and that includes being the only one on stage not cracking up at the now classic Beavis and Butthead sketch that has already entered TV lore.

Tyler James Williams, Abbott Elementary

I’ll admit I was deeply annoyed that Williams didn’t get the Emmy last year. Not to take anything away from so many of the other great nominees: Moss Bachrach was spectacular and I would have been thrilled if either of the nominees from Barry had been recognized. But it’s hard not to fall in love with Williams’s incredible work as Gregory every second he’s onscreen.

And as always Williams’s gave us so many more reasons to love Gregory then usual. The complicated love story between him and Janine was at the center of this season, from the way it seemed to fragment at the start to the way it finally ignited at the end and all the false starts and humiliating moments in between (especially for Gregory) But we also got to see how much Gregory truly loves his job, not only as he takes on the role of a mentor to the goofballs, the way he finally gets a grant for a program, and the way he cared so much for an absent child to the point of risking his job. And there are so many ways we love him – and love him humiliate himself – whether in front of Ava or…well, it’s almost always Ava – as well as the way we see how he deals with his issues. Gregory is a good teacher and a good man and I hope the Emmys will find a way to recognize him with a prize. If not this year, then soon.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Brad Garrett, Not Dead Yet

For me this is a kind of atonement. Much as I love Brad Garrett I never like Everybody Loves Raymond and I kind of begrudged Garrett at least two of his three Emmys. Like Ray Romano himself, he had to leave the show for me to appreciate his work and I have for his performances as the crime lawyer in Season 2 of Fargo, his darkly comic work in I’m Dying Up Here as a mess of a comedian, his superb performance as a fed in City of Angels (a canceled too soon spin-off of Penny Dreadful.)

In his season on the show Garrett took a brilliant series and made it even more so. As the mogul father of Lexi, we watched the two of them spend so much time trying to say I love you but not pull off, watch as Duncan showed vulnerability with his daughter’s new boyfriend, and in the brilliant series finale, faced his mortality and tried to deal with his relationship with his daughter.

Garrett has gotten more than his share of love from the Emmys, so he’d be fine if he wasn’t nominated. But I think it would be a fitting tribute to both him and the series if he got one more nod.

 

Tomorrow I wrap up this part of it with Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy. Expect a mix of familiar faces, new ones and in accordance with California state law, Meryl Streep. (Not a joke this year, actually.)