The Toughest Emmy Quandary: Supporting Actress in a Drama Series?
Wednesday, June 3, 2015 at 7:00PM
NATHANIEL R in Actressexuality, Ann Dowd, Cara Seymour, Christina Hendricks, Emmy, Helen McCrory, Lorraine Toussaint, Orange is the New Black, Penny Dreadful, TV, The Knick, The Leftovers

We begin an Emmy FYC series tomorrow (Daily at Noon) since voting commences this month for nominations for the 67th Annual Emmy Awards. Emmy rules allow for 6 acting nominees per category. Though I shudder when any pundit suggests expanding lineups in any awards show -- it reduces the meaning if it's easy to get nominated -- if there were ever a convincing argument against honoring twice as many actors as usual, isn't it the 2015 Supporting Actress in a Drama Series field? 

THE FACTS
For the past three years the category has been almost exclusively dominated by five women. The 2012, 2013 and 2014 seasons saw a nominated shortlist that always included Christine Baranski (5 nominations for The Good Wife, 7 previous nominations with 1 win), Christina Hendricks (Mad Men, 5 nominations), Maggie Smith (4 nominations and 2 wins for Downton Abbey, 4 previous nominations with another win) and Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad, 3 nominations and 2 wins). Joanna Froggatt (Downton Abbey, 2 nominations) was usually in the lineup as well leaving very little wiggle room for other fine actresses. Essentially voters had one free spot each year that they were then quite fickle with. All but one of these five women are still eligible (Breaking Bad is finally off the air) which begs the question of how Emmy will deal with so many new and valuable players from freshman series or players who've been coalescing fans and momentum towards nominations without quite breaking in for other series.

Unless Emmy is willing to ditch one of their four beloveds (and it better not be Hendricks who had such a great sendoff in Mad Men and has been robbed in the past) there's only room for two newbies or returning players and there are a couple dozen of them (at least) to consider after the jump...

RETURNING POSSIBILITIES
Previous nominees that could return include Archie Panjabi (it's the last chance for this former favorite to return for The Good Wife since she's left the show), Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), Kate Mulgrew, Natasha Lyonne, Laverne Cox or Uzo Aduba (Orange is the New Black) and January Jones who was once nominated as lead for Mad Men but who absolutely nailed her more sidelined role in the final season of Mad Men.

Orange is the New Black presents the most interesting case. Last year it competed in Comedy and wound up with 5 acting nominations. But the powers that be within the television Academy were clearly not pleased with how far Orange is the New Black bent the rules without breaking them*. They hogged almost the entire guest category with regular supporting players -- Natasha Lyonne is in every episode, isn't she?, and Uzo Aduba is in most of them -- such that they had to make a long overdue absolutely smart new ruling (if you're in more than 50% of the episodes, you can't be a "guest" anymore). Other shows had cheated before (hi Joan Cusack on Shameless) but none so egregiously/greedily.

Emmy also obviously held a grudge since they refused to consider the prison dramedy a comedy this year though they granted two other hour long shows an exception (Jane the Virgin and Shameless). It's tough to read that as anything other than a punishment since Shameless is about three days journey on foot closer to Drama than Orange is the New Black is on that long gray divide in the Comedy to Drama continuum.  But all that said, Emmy voters are different than Academy rule-makers and Emmy voters have already shown that they love this show so it could wrack up drama nominations despite a tougher playing field.

Yael Stone - OITNB's most undervalued player?

NEVER BEEN NOMINATED... BUT HOW CLOSE HAVE THEY COME? 
Among returning actresses that haven't been honored for their portrayals these actresses certainly have their fans: Yael Stone and Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black) Gwendolyn Christie (Game of Thrones), Bellamy Young (Scandal), Caitlyn Fitzgerald (Masters of Sex), Melissa McBride (The Walking Dead), Annaleigh Ashford (Masters of Sex), Alison Wright (The Americans) and anyone from The Newsroom (though I doubt voters will feel nostalgia for that shuttered series)

FRESHMAN CONTENDERS
I'm cherry-picking some celebrated actresses as well as personal favorites here but the field of new players is so rich and skilled and doing such wonderful things with fresh-feeling characters that you have to hope that at least one of them breaks through. One commonly held belief about the Emmys that is largely true, though not without numerous exceptions, is that if the voters don't notice your show in the first year they never do.

Cara Seymour is our Special Guest Star Blogger next week!

The Knick has three key Supporting Actresses for voters to consider but the MVP among them is Cara Seymour as an unconventional nun. Her line readings, unspoken feelings, and tetchy rapport with co-stars are all things of true actorly beauty. Penny Dreadful is in its second season and chances are voters don't watch it. It's also weirdly perched on the exact divide of Emmy calendar years so even their "hanging episodes" rule gets cloudy with this show working against it ever being recognized but that said, Helen McCrory who made a cameo last year but has a full supporting role this time around is doing deeply memorable, funny, and bone curdling work as a satanic witch. She's the first actor on the show to go head to head with Eva Green without getting theirs blown off (figuratively speaking... though there is a lot of gorey stuff on this show).

Ann Dowd. Just amazing. over and over again.

The Leftovers has several female characters but the best of them are the brilliant grieving Carrie Coon (who could probably get away with campaigning lead) and Ann Dowd's mesmerizingly committed cult leader on that first season. Either of them would make a respectable Emmy winner, let alone nominee. Finally, Bloodline focuses way too much on its men but both Sissy Spacek and Linda Cardellini are available to voters should they be watching. 

(Which other longshot newbies did I miss?)

QUESTION: 
Will Emmy tire of their favorite supporting actress dolls and shake things up or will no first time players muscle their way in? Truth: the combination of nominee possibilities are virtually endless if the people doing the nominating are actually watching the vast array of contenders. Also a Truth: Emmy history suggests that they don't really consider the vast array of contenders, no matter how much fans of never-nominated shows wish they would.

The field is just so deep. I mean you could make a nominee list with JUST villains and it could be a brilliant nominee list.

YOU COULD MAKE PRACTICALLY AN ENTIRE AWESOME VILLIANS SHORT LIST THAT WOULD BE WORTHY

 

YOU COULD GO ALL FIRST-TIME NOMINEES AND FEEL PROUD OF YOUR VOTE

Annaleigh Ashford already has Tony nominations. Why not an Emmy nom, too?

YOU COULD GO ALL MAD MEN /  ORANGE  AND HAVE A KILLER LINEUP

Lorraine Toussaint was quite the Queen Vee on OITNB

I don't have an Emmy ballot but frankly I don't know how I'd narrow it down from this ridiculously abundant field of riches. 

Can you?

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
See website for complete article licensing information.