As I wrap this
up I would like to give a shout out to the many more than qualified eligible candidates
that will likely be ignored. These include both Calista Flockhart and Demi Moore
for Capote Vs. The Swans, Sandra Oh for The Sympathizer and
Amanda Peet for his balanced work in Fellow Travelers. I hope that the
Astras has room for some of you next week and part of me would be fine if any
of you were listed by chance.
As with before I’m
going to go to seven nominations in this category. They include some of the
most undervalued character actresses in recent years as well as some of the
better performances in all of the last year. Here are my choices.
Dakota Fanning, Ripley
Having seen Talented
Mr. Ripley I think one of the biggest improvements is how Marge has grown
out in the Netflix adaptations. For all of Gwynneth Paltrow’s talent, the film
didn’t utilize her to her best ability. Steven Zaillian has found a better way
to use Marge.
Fanning takes on
an intriguing portrayal: she cares for Dickie’s wellbeing probably more than he
does and is the warning sign for Tom’s problems before he gets there. Marge is
clearly more suspicious almost from the start to Tom’s actions and it’s clear
over the next few episodes that she’s spending as much time fawning over him as
she is lying to herself in the letters she writes that show a far different
reality. Paltrow’s Marge seemed
horrified by both men; in Fanning’s portrayal you get a sense of devotion to
Dickie that was clearly never returned. In this sense we see the tragedy of Tom’s
actions far more visibly in Marge than any previous version.
I had little use
for Elle Fanning’s nominations for The Great the past few years even
though I admired her work in other films. Her sister clearly has a much darker
role to play in her first major TV role and it’s more than worthy of a
nomination.
Jessica Gunning,
Baby Reindeer
Gunning had one
of the most difficult roles to play of all the nominees in this category. As
Martha, the overweight, emotionally disturbed and psychotic woman who makes Donny’s
life an intractable hell she had to not only play every aspect of this character
but also play someone who could appear harmless when necessary, appear psychotically
disturbed on a moments moment, be by far a dangerous threat and ultimately turn
out to be as broken as Donny was. And had she made a single misstep in her
work, there’s a very good chance the entire series could have failed. Gunning
handled all of this with remarkable aplomb and continued to show an incredible
pathos in so much of the time she was onscreen. And considering that whenever
she was off, Martha might very well be more danger when she wasn’t, her
presence was always looming over it. Much of Gunning’s best work was done in
recordings and voiceovers, particularly in the critical final episode.
It's the sad nature
of how social media worked that despite all of Gadd’s best intentions, not only
did the world that Donny’s side but track down the real Martha and publicly vilify
her the way that they have always taken the most complex stories across the
world and turned them into purely binary. This is unfair both to the fiction
and the real Martha, who Gadd makes very clear in the final episodes was just
as much a tragic figure as she was a monster and a victim of the same system
the way he was. It may not be viewed as a tragic performance but no one will
deny it was a master class.
Aja Naomi King, Lessons
in Chemistry
Aja Naomi King
was a very known quantity to me for her work in How to Get Away With Murder and
I was inclined to hold that against her before watching Lessons in
Chemistry. Needless to say she was the biggest revelation of the entire
series.
Harriet Sloane
is initially more important to the story because of what she means to Calvin
then the main action. Then in the aftermath of his tragic death she slowly
becomes essential to Elizabeth’s life and two women who would otherwise never
become a friend or even relate form a bond that takes them both through an
incredible tragedy. Harriet is even more of an outsider than Elizabeth is and
as we see, just as much determined to disrupt though even louder. This is particularly
significant in the era she lives: if white women were invisible, African-American
women weren’t – but they no doubt longed for it at times. Harriet never
considers being invisible and her boldness is an inspiration.
King is one of
the only names in this category who has any success in the end of year awards:
she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress by both the Critics’ Choice
Awards and the Image Awards. She will be a formidable contender.
Diane Lane, Capote
Vs. The Swans
Like almost all
the actresses in the series, Diane Lane has been one of the more undervalued
actresses for more than four decades. In addition to a peerless film career,
she has been involved in some of the most remarkable television, from Lonesome
Dove to a constant career in TV movies to the controversial final season of
House of Cards to Y:The Last Man. Her work as Slim Keith wasn’t
even the only Limited Series she was a part of this year: she also played
Martha in the Netflix Adaptation of A Man In Full.
But her work as
Slim Keith featured by far some of the best work she has done in any medium
since her role in Trumbo nearly a decade ago. As the wife who takes the
offensive to ‘starve’ Truman after the excerpt of Answered Prayers appears
in Esquire she remains the most determined to destroy him over the years. Her righteousness,
like all the other characters, is revealed to be hypocrisy, both in her affair
with Babe’s husband even as he dies from cancer and after we learn of her own
horrid behavior towards so many of the women she was defending. It’s a riveting
performance.
Lane has been
nominated twice for Emmys before, for both Lonesome Dove and her work in
the HBO film Cinema Verite but just as with the Oscars, she has never
one. There are countless great performances by her co-stars in this category but
hers is one of the most deserving. It’s unclear where she’ll finish in the
Emmys this year, but she would be a more than deserving winner.
Jennifer Jason
Leigh, Fargo
The mother of critical
darlings. Leigh has been winning critics awards for her entire career from the
moment she walked on to the national consciousness in Miami Blues. She
is the queen of character actresses and independent films. But for now let’s
focus on her career in television, which is if anything, nearly as impressive.
She’s been involved in Weeds, Revenge and Twin Peaks. Her work as
Patrick Melrose’s mother deserved an Emmy nomination. She had one of the lead
roles in atypical, played Julianne Moore’s sister in Lisey’s Story and
starred in the second season of Hunters. And now the mother of all character
actresses plays the mother of all mothers in Fargo.
Leigh, when the
occasion calls for it can chew the scenery as well as anybody – it’s sometimes
been a thing that works against her. As Lorraine, the gun-toting billionaire
whose made a fortune on the debts of other people she clearly is having the
time of her life in a way that none of the other characters are. She is
hysterical every moment she’s on screen, whether she’s ordering her family to
pose with AK’s in a Christmas Card picture (taken in October) telling her
attorney to slap her son, proud of not only her white privilege but disdainful
of those who say she should be softer. Season 5 of Fargo would be brilliant
just for Leigh’s character alone.
There are a lot
of great performers but I’m not going to lie. I want to Leigh win. Despite all
of the incredible performances in her long career with have won her so many
critics groups awards she has one Oscar nomination to her credit. It might seem
ridiculous to consider her the sentimental favorite in this category
(considering the character she plays would consider sentiment something for the
weak!) but I want to see her up there. I really would.
Kali Reis, True
Detective: Night Country
Kali Reis was
unique to any of the partners investigating a crime in True Detective: it
wasn’t just that Danvers’s was Navarro’s superior officer, a power imbalance we’ve
yet to see on the show; it was that she had to spend all of her time performing
along side one of the greatest actresses in history and not only be as good as
her onscreen but be more dominant at times. It is a credit to the skill of Reis
that she was able to do all of that in Night Country.
I’ll be honest:
there were aspects of both female characters that I found lacking; both Navarro
and Danvers’s were, for all intents and purposes, just the female equivalent of
so many of the male detectives we’ve seen over the last three years; sleeping
with whoever they want, having a very different philosophical difference. And
the fact is, much of Reis’s work involved the woo-woo aspect of the show that I
have always found the most lacking for the entire anthology series. But taken
purely as a standard of acting, it was as powerful as some of the best and
bigger names that have been a part of the series over the years and at least as
worthy of Emmy nominations as any of the previous ones. I’ll debate whether
either she or Foster deserve to win when the nominations come out, but I’m not
going to pretend neither deserves to be there.
Chloe Sevigny, Capote
Vs. The Swans
Chloe Sevigny
has spent nearly as much of her career in TV as she has in movies. Her work in Big
Love was one of the best performances in an underrated show, and while she
didn’t receive even an Emmy nomination, she did receive a Golden Globe. She has
been working more in TV than movies ever since in a wide range, from a
recurring role on Portlandia and The Mindy Project a lead role in
the thriller Those Who Kill, constantly working in American Horror Story,
such prestige series as Bloodline, Russian Doll and The Act. And
yet despite that, she has yet to earn a single Emmy nomination. It will be very
hard to justify excluding her for her work as Slim Keith on Capote Vs. the
Swans though it would hardly stun be if the Emmys found a way.
Watching Sevigny
play the restrained society wife I was reminded – as if I ever needed reminding
– how versatile a performer Sevigny is. This is the same actress who in recent
years played the drugged out mother of Nadia in a flashback in Season 2 of Russian
Doll and played the head of a one-hit wonder rock band in Poker Face with
the same aplomb. Here a slightly older Slim has the same frailties as all the
other characters but is also aware of her beauty and trying to recapture both
her youth as well as the dying fall of New York society around her. She remains
the closest to Truman after his exile, the only one to stay in contact with
him, the one who tells him that Babe is dead, who hears the eulogy to her he’ll
never deliver. It’s perhaps the most supporting performance in the show and its
brilliant. I don’t know if Sevigny can get a nomination but as with all her
work she has earned it.
FOR YOUR
CONSIDERATION
Allison Brie, Apples
Never Fall
If it were up to
be I would have listed Brie above some of the more likely candidates: I honestly
believe her work deserves recognition more than Fanning or even Reis. But the
sad truth is, it has been the fate of this brilliant performer to have worked
in some of the best television of the last fifteen years, from Community to GLOW,
and see her show or her colleagues be nominated and herself ignored. Considering
how much GLOW was loved and the Emmys shutout of her personally, I see
little chance of her getting recognized for a limited series that is almost
certain to be ignored by the Emmys.
But it’s one of
the highlights of the show all the same. Brie has managed to play much of her
career portraying characters who are professionally put together if personally
flawed. Amy is the Delaney child who has been the biggest mess her entire life,
pitied by her siblings, unable to find a path. In that sense Brie was the
biggest revelation of Apples not just in showing someone completely
broken but as someone who has a hidden strength that none of her family
expected and a belief in herself that she didn’t know she had until the series
was nearly over. It was a funny and moving performance, both of which are Brie’s
sweet spots.
Paradoxically
while I’ve listed other performers from Apples as my favorites among
nominees then some of the more likely candidates, I think Brie’s work is the most
worthy of a trophy of the cast. But I’m realistic enough to know it is likely
the Emmys will never recognize her for anything she does, though like Amy
herself, I keep hoping for the best.
Well, that’s it.
Next week, I will be dealing with the final parts of Phase 3 of the Emmy
watching, including the Astra 2024 nominations which will be coming out
Tuesday. Those of you who follow my blog know that this is by far my favorite
awards show of the year when it comes to both nominations and awards. I look
forward to that even more than the Emmy nominations themselves.
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