By Spencer Coile
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If you were to go back and evaluate the Lead Actor in a Drama Series race from the past decade, you may expect to find a lot of Bryan Cranston for his performance as Walter White on Breaking Bad. Yet, intriguingly, while Cranston won his fair share of Emmy’s, this category is more unpredictable than you might expect.
With winners including Kyle Chandler for Friday Night Lights, Jeff Daniels for The Newsroom, Rami Malek for Mr. Robot, and of course Cranston and Jon Hamm for Mad Men, Lead Actor is often changing hands. In fact, Cranston is most recent consecutive repeat winner (back in 2010). Will last year’s winner Sterling K. Brown break this new one-off trend, or will a new winner emerge...
Best Leading Actor in a Drama Series Nominees:
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Jason Bateman as “Marty Byrde” on Ozark: “The Toll”
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Sterling K. Brown as “Randall Pearson” on This Is Us: “Number Three”
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Ed Harris as “The Man in Black/ William” on Westworld: “Vanishing Point”
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Matthew Rhys as “Philip Jennings” on The Americans: “START”
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Milo Ventimiglia as “Jack Pearson” on This Is Us: “The Car”
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Jeffrey Wright as “Bernard Lowe” on Westworld: “The Passenger”
Will Win: The Westworld men are lucky to be nominated – particularly Harris, whose one dimensional character didn’t really do much in the show’s second season. Same goes for Bateman. Ventimiglia seems to be sitting right in the middle of the pack. He’s competitive, but will likely still not win.
This comes down to a two-man race between Brown and Rhys. Brown continued to add nuance to his performance as Randall Pearson. Between This Is Us and The People v. O.J. Simpson, we know that Emmy voters love him. Meanwhile, Rhys gave his best performance ever in “START” and could likely go the Kyle Chandler route – winning for the series finale of a beloved, yet under-awarded show. I’ll give the edge to Brown, but it feels neck-and-neck, doesn't it?
Should Win: The Americans requires a heavy amount of patience to finish. It is slow, methodical, and sometimes cold. That said, if you stick it out and get to that series finale, you’d be hard-pressed to deny the towering work of Matthew Rhys. As solid as this lineup is, he should win this hands down.
Could Spoil: If Ventimiglia was ever going to win, it’d be for his work on this season of This Is Us. Not only does he play an insanely likeable character, but he is the catalyst for the entire series. Everything revolves around him, and perhaps the Emmy’s will want to reward that?
Your turn! Is Brown the one to beat, or will Rhys clinch it at just the right time?