Thoughts on Emmy Nominations: Drama Supporting Acting

Here are my thoughts on the “supporting acting” nominations for the Drama category.

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Last year’s nominees:

• Aaron Paul
• Martin Short
• Terry O’Quinn
• Michael Emerson
• John Slattery
• Andre Braugher

As noted before, no Lost, no Damages and no Breaking Bad. So that’s four of last year’s nominees out.

Will be nominated:

• John Slattery
• Andre Braugher
• Alan Cumming
• Josh Charles
• Peter Dinklage
• Scott Caan

No reason Slattery and Braugher won’t keep their well-deserved spots. Even though I don’t watch The Good Wife, I think both Cumming and Charles will make it in. Surely one of the greatest matches in the HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE between actor and role – Peter Dinklage and Tyrion Lannister – will get a nomination. It would be criminal to exclude him. Lastly, I think we might see a non-Good Wife nod to “mainstream” programming here, with Caan slipping in to the last spot. Love or hate Hawaii 5-0, I think most folks agree that Caan is by far best thing about it, and his daddy is kinda famous, too.
 
Should be nominated:

• John Noble
• Peter Dinklage
• Walton Goggins
• Irrfan Khan
• Denis O’Hare
• Arliss Howard

When will the Emmys recognize the brilliant, daffy, rich, heartbreaking work that John Noble is doing on Fringe? Give this man a trophy, now, dammit! Hard to believe they were going to kill Boyd Crowder in the Justified pilot. Rightly, the producers saw that Goggins can burn up the screen and hold his own with any of the characters in Harlan. Khan gave a dazzling and deceptive performance on In Treatment. True Blood was a narrative shit-stain last year, but O’Hare realized what kind of show he was on, and treated the scenery as if it was an all-you-can-eat buffet. His interruption of the evening news was probably my favorite TV moment of last year. Howard’s Kale Ingram was a slippery, cold-blooded tightrope walker on Rubicon.

Honorable Mention:

John Slattery, Andre Braugher, Michael Raymond-James (Yes, they are all three deserving). Joel Kinnaman (Jittery, compelling performance in a cluster-fuck of a show). Jason Momoa (can you get nominated speaking Dothraki and promising to rape and pillage in the name of love? Probably not. Still, actually makes me look forward to the Conan reboot). Mark Addy, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (more proof of the spectacular casting on Game of Thrones). Nick Searcy, Dallas Roberts, Brent Sexton (not his fault the writers made the character of Bennett’s wife TOO FUCKING STUPID to have a conversation with, and actually recognize, the man who A) beat her husband near to death, and B) has been all over the news as the grieving father of Rosie Larsen), Jared Harris (I wanna go get a steak with Lane Pryce), Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Kenneth Williams, Michael Pitt, Scott Bakula, Delroy Lindo.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Last year’s nominations:

• Sharon Gless
• Rose Byrne
• Archie Panjabi
• Christine Baranski
• Christina Hendricks
• Elisabeth Moss

No Damages, and Moss has moved on up to a de-luxe apartment in the sky.

Will be nominated:

• Sharon Gless
• Archie Panjabi
• Christine Baranski
• Christina Hendricks
• Margo Martindale
• Debra Winger

Sticking with the incumbent theory yet again, with two new additions: Even if Justified doesn’t get its “justified” Emmy love, Martindale’s performance was so ferocious and so towering is simply HAS to get recognized. Winger was good on In Treatment, and she is a well-known name and was a movie star, so perhaps she gets that final slot.

Should be nominated:

• Margo Martindale
• Emelia Clarke
• Kelly Macdonald
• Christina Hendricks
• Michelle Forbes
• Lauren Hodges

Mags Bennett FTW, y’all. Daenerys Targaryen was an extremely difficult character to pull off, given her complicated journey from helpless bartered bride to mother of the dragons, but newcomer Emelia Clarke owned the screen in every one of her scenes. She was beyond fantastic, breathing life and richness into a character I didn’t fully appreciate on the page in the first novel. Kelly Macdonald had a similar role (though of course there were no dragons on Boardwalk Empire, though they would have made just as good an enforcer as Richard Harrow): a woman trying to navigate the power games of a man’s world where society doesn’t offer equal opportunities for women. Joan Holloway is a given, right? Michelle Forbes is always great (Ensign Ro, Admiral Cain, Maryann) and was compelling on The Killing, despite the dead-end, shitty scripts she was given. Finally, I’m sure some of you are thinking “who the hell is Lauren Hodges?” Well, she played slightly unstable analyst Tanya on Rubicon, giving one of a number of remarkable performances on that show that won’t get recognized.

Honorable Mention:

Ginnifer Goodwin, Chloe Sevigny (both great throughout the run of Big Love), Laura Allen (miss U, Terriers), Amy Ryan (ably filling Dianne Weist’s shoes as Paul’s shrink on In Treatment), Maggie Siff, Jennifer Carpenter (lots of people don’t like Debra Morgan, but I love her foul mouth), Deborah Ann Woll, Laurie Holden (what’s it like to shoot your zombie-fied sister in the brain? Now, heartbreakingly, we know), Debra Winger.