As I said, much
as I admire some of the actors in it, I refuse to acknowledge any performers from
The Regime in this category. It is very likely that there will be at
least one nominee from Fargo and True Detective in this category
but there is no guarantee my choice will be the one that the Emmys choose.
Considering the level of talent in the Supporting cast of each, I won’t be
irritated if they are ignored for another choice. The remainder of my selections
with one exception will stick close the heavy favorites in this category. I’m
going to go for seven nominees because that’s how many there were in this category
the last two years.
Jonathan Bailey,
Fellow Travelers
Of all the
potential nominees Bailey is the only one who already has an award to his credit,
having taken the Supporting Actor prize from the Critics Choice Awards earlier
this year. Aside from the fact that technically speaking Bailey is a co-lead
rather than supporting performer there is absolutely no reason why he should
not be the frontrunner in this category
Bailey’s work as
Tim had by far the biggest arc in the entire series. Starting out as a Catholic
and true believer in McCarthyism as well as a complete innocent, we see his
character fall under the influence of Hawk’s cynicism early on but somehow
manage to remain true to himself in a way Hawk can’t. As he moves away from
McCarthy’s spell, he remains an increased activist, first as the counterculture
and then becoming fully devoted to gay rights. When the series begins Tim is suffering
from the final stages of AIDS but he is more alive than Hawk ever was
throughout his career. The most moving moment for Bailey occurs at the end of
the series when he acknowledges to Hawk: “I have loved you my whole life” and
is a bolder declaration than any of the many erotic scenes we’ve seen between
them during the series. I really would love if Bailey were the winner in this
category, despite the bigger names.
Robert Downey,
Jr. The Sympathizer
There’s an
excellent chance that Robert Downey will become the first actor to win an Oscar
and an Emmy in the same year and there are few combinations of work that show
his versatility then the subtle nuances of Levi Strauss in Oppenheimer and
the four different performances he gives throughout The Sympathizer. Not
since the work of Alec Guiness and Peter Sellers has anyone tried something
akin to Downey’s work in this film, playing a CIA agent, a leftist professor, a
hard-right congressman and a Hollywood auteur, all of whom the Captain
encounters at various times (and in one brilliant scene, all at once) and all
of whom represent different phases of what Vietnam meant to Americans as opposed
to the Vietnamese.
Of course as we
see all four portrayals regard the Captain with variations of the same kind of
bigotry, all trying to use him for his own end, all unaware (and in most cases,
uncaring) of the lies he is telling the world and himself. But it isn’t until
the final episode that Downey takes on a fifth role and in it we understand
that everything Downey has done is not just an excuse to show off his acting chops
but has a far darker meaning.
Nearly a quarter
of a century ago Downey was a heavy favorite for an Emmy for his one-season
stint in Ally McBeal before he was upset by his co-star. I have a strong
feeling Hollywood will rectify this mistake this year and it is both the right
time and for absolutely the right kind of work.
John Hawkes, True
Detective: Night Country
Even if John
Hawkes had never appeared on Peak TV, he’d definitely be one of the greatest
character actors who ever lived. As part of Peak TV, he’s been one of the
greatest forces and that was true even before he launched to the front of our
perception as Sol Star in Deadwood in 2003, one of the few characters in
the entire series with a pure moral compass. So great a performer is he that in
the aftermath of Season 6 co-creator Damon Lindelof mourned that the Temple
story line had ‘wasted John Hawkes.” Hawkes has continued to show his range in
the brilliant comedy Eastbound & Down and a stint on one of the best episodes of Inside
Amy Schumer. But not since recreating his role in Deadwood: The Movie has
he been back on television. And as Hank Prior, it was worth the wait.
There were many
problems I had with Night Country but the bullying former husband of Sheriff
Danvers, trying to put his foot on everything that happened including the behavior
of his son, was far from one of them. Hawkes is well known for playing malevolence
in so many of his best films but he’s never gotten a chance to do so on TV
before and he did so the same way he does everything: perfectly and
understated.
I don’t know
what I find more appalling that in Hawkes’s career he has only one Oscar
nomination to his credit or that he’s never been nominated for an Emmy. At
the very least the Emmys owes him a nomination for this show.
Jake Lacy, The
Caine Mutiny Court Martial/Apples Never Fall
Of the nominees
I’ve listed here, Lacy is by far one of the longest shots of the entire group.
That strikes me as very odd, not only because he was nominated two years ago
for his work in The White Lotus but he gave two very different performances
that showed how far he was from the spoiled millionaire who dueled with Armand
for supremacy in the first season.
In The Caine
Mutiny, he took on the role of Lt. Maryk on trial for his actions and the
impetus for what happens. Spending much of the first half essentially in the
background and silent, Lacy moment comes in the second act when he describes in
detail every action Queeg took that made him believe he was crazy. Far more
telling his work in the cross-examination where the viewer sees just how over
his head he was intellectually and is cut down to size, doggedly sticking to
his principles but looking like he’s been wrecked when he leaves the stand.
His work as Troy
seemed closer to his work in The White Lotus, an arrogant elder son who
looks down at so many people. But like everyone else in the series, we quickly
see how much trauma is buried beneath it and how that has led him to be self-destructive
throughout his life and how it plays out in the series. There is a clear
redemptive arc to him we haven’t seen before and honestly his previous work
hadn’t let us see.
Either of these
performances would have been enough to win him a nomination and perhaps he will
get recognition for both from the Astras next week. He is an extreme dark horse
for a nomination but both performances showcase why he is a superb actor.
Lewis Pullman, Lessons
in Chemistry
For all of the
subtle brilliance of Lewis Pullman as Calvin, I only recently learned that he
is the son of one of my favorite character actors of all time, Bill Pullman. Given
everything we saw in his stint this past year, it’s clear that he’s already got
the abilities his father did.
Calvin is a
basically a savant who has great mental genius and horrible personal behavior.
He is tolerated at Hastings because of the former but not much more than
Elizabeth because of her gender. The relationship they form is one first of
necessity, then minds, and finally hearts. When he kisses her it comes as first
a shock, then a delight. Calvin is willing to put himself before the woman he
loves at all time and clearly sees her as his superior – and when he dies
tragically in the second episode, it is a blow to the audience who hadn’t read
the book. I had a sense it was coming but I hoped against hope.
Pullman has been
nominated for a Critics Choice Award in this category, though he lost to Bailey
in January. He’s almost certain to be nominated but will likely lose to Robert
Downey, Jr. This is, sadly, the fate his father has endured in his longer career
when it comes to awards and I hope that Lewis will have as long and productive
career as Bill already has. This performance demonstrates the strong likelihood
of that.
Sam Spruell, Fargo
It is the nature
of Fargo that it always has an extraordinary supporting cast of background
players in every incarnation. In the first three seasons, it managed at least
one nominee in this category and in its fourth, it should have had at least one
as well. And we have a multitude of brilliant supporting performances to
recognize, from Joe Keery’s incompetent son of Roy Tillman to Lamone Morris’s noble
deputy to Dave Foley’s dryly hysterical attorney. All are worthy of nominations
and I would be more than fine if one or more were.
But I’m going to
advocate for one of the less well-known actors who played arguably the most
critical supporting role in the entire series. We’ve frequently had mystical
elements in Fargo but we’ve never had a character who embodied all the
strange elements the same way that Sam Spruell’s Mr. Wrench did. Starting out
as just the kind of thug sent to get Dot, he became as much of an adversary to
both sides as anyone else – and then we learned that he was a conceivably
immortal soul-eater who seems to have spent centuries searching out recompense.
It says a lot about Hawley’s work that not only does the viewer not question
this, but it never comes up in any interaction of the characters.
Spruell didn’t
have as much emotional range as many of his co-stars on this series, which
makes the power of his work all the more remarkable. And there’s something
profound about this show that the final moments showed his fate and ended not
in darkness – as almost every season has – but something resembling happiness. It’s
the kind of thing deserving of a nomination.
Treat Williams, Capote
Vs. The Swans
One of the great
tragedies unfolded when Treat Williams passed away in a tragic motorcycle accident
earlier this year. There is a strong possibility that he would have earned an
Emmy nomination for what will be his final television performance as Bill Paley
the head of CBS and the cheating husband of Babe in Capote. But now,
just as Ray Liotta’s work in Black Bird last year was ensure of a
nomination in this category because of his untimely death, Williams’ work is a
lock.
And indeed his
work reminded us what a great performer we lost as he plays Bill, the husband
who feels the most betrayed by Truman’s actions in Feud, who goes out of
his way to tend to his wife when she is diagnosed with cancer – but still has
an affair with one of her closest friends – and who in her final days engages in
a knockdown argument with his wife about all the failures in their marriage and
as parents. He stands firm in making sure Truman can’t attend the funeral, but
at the wake women are circling him.
Just as Liotta
was, Williams was by far one of our most underappreciated character actors
almost never getting recognition for the incredible work he did in film and
television in his more than four decade career. His role is somewhat larger
than the one Liotta had, but it is no less as dominating and a fitting tribute
to one of our great performers.
FOR YOUR
CONSIDERATION
Eliot Sumner, Ripley
I suppose I
should be advocating for Johnny Flynn here but I’m not going to lie. Of the
incredible cast in this show, Sumner stole every scene he was in during his
brief stint on Ripley.
Sumner, I should
probably mention, has recently transitioned from female to male, according to
his imdb.com page. That is fairly clear in his work as Freddie Miles, where for
much of his performance I honestly wondered if the writers had swapped genders
for this character. In all honesty, this ambiguity perfectly fits the nature of
Ripley where so much of the sexuality of many of the characters is in
flux. Sumner had relatively few scenes (if you’ve read the original book or
seen the film, you know why) but every moment he was onscreen I couldn’t take
my eyes of him. And considering almost all of those scenes were with Andrew
Scott, that should tell you of how good a performer he is.
Sumner is taking
on big shoes of his own: on the silver screen, this character was played by the late, great
Philip Seymour Hoffman. In a different film review, a critic said that it was
from that film on Hoffman had demonstrated his ability to steal a film from any
actor or actress, no matter how great a performer onscreen. Sumner is known
more for music than performing – this is one of the first significant roles he’s
had in movies or TV – but he demonstrates the gift that Hoffman had in the movies
and I think it deserves recognition here.
Tomorrow I will wrap
everything up with Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series/TV Movie.
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