- I'm Tiffany Taylor for The Hollywood Reporter,
and the Emmy nominations voting window
is right around the corner.
It opens June 10th.
So today, THR's award columnist, Scott Feinberg,
is sitting down with me to talk all things Emmys.
So Scott, thank you so much for being here.
- Thanks for having me.
- You've said this year could be the year
of the Comeback Kid
where performers who've previously been overlooked
may finally get nominated this year.
So why is that?
- I think the thing that happens at the Emmys
because there's so much good TV out there
right now in the era of peak TV
is that once they have moved on from you,
they don't often go back to you.
So if you have been nominated in the past
but then you weren't nominated for, let's say, season two
or if you were never nominated for season one,
usually that's it.
There are always exceptions, but they just move on
to whatever's the exciting new show.
This year, because there are so many shows
from last year that have either ended,
like The Americans, or that had a year off,
like Handmaid's Tale, Stranger Things, The Crown,
there are many openings in the acting categories as well.
And so, if you look at a category
like Best Actress in a Drama Series,
five of last year's six nominees are not eligible.
So question is, are there enough new, exciting rookie shows
to claim all of those slots or are we gonna see
a re-visitation of some of the people
who had been overlooked in the past?
- Who are some actresses we could see
in that Best Drama Actress category break through?
- Well so, let's look at an example like
Christine Baranski from The Good Fight.
She was someone who on The Good Wife,
the show that this was spun-off from,
was not nominated for the show's first two seasons
on CBS All Access because a lot of people didn't even know
where to find CBS All Access.
This year, she is again in the running.
This is a character that she was nominated
six times for playing on The Good Wife
but again not for the first two seasons of The Good Fight.
So what's changed?
The profile of CBS All Access was really raised by
Jordan Peele's show that went on there,
The Twilight Zone, the reboot.
I think a lot of people found that.
I think she realized that she has to do a little bit
more out here in LA where a lot of the voters are
and where a lot of the entertainment press is.
So she came out here and sort of
beat the pavement a little more than she has in the past.
I think she gets in for the first time.
Jodie Comer from Killing Eve was not nominated last season,
the first season of Killing Eve.
However, for the second season,
she's already beaten her co-star Sandra Oh
who's the only returning contender from last year
that was nominated last year, will be nominated again,
she beat Sandra Oh at the BAFTA TV Awards.
- Nice and clean just like you taught me.
- It's hard to imagine her not also now
getting her first nom, having not been nominated
for a prior season on that show.
So there are many others we could go through,
probably Laura Linney for Ozark.
- I love you.
- And maybe even Mandy Moore for the third season now
of This Is Us.
- Let's go home.
- So that's a category where there are a lot of vacancies
that have to be filled by somebody,
and it looks like a high-profile returning nominee
who's worthy of it could well claim several of those.
- What about the Lead Actress in a Comedy category?
- So you have all six of last year's nominees
in that category returning, plus the return of Veep's
Julia Louis-Dreyfus who's won for every season of that show,
now probably gonna win for the final season.
- If I ever needed a miracle, it's right now.
- So in this case, it's a matter of not somebody
claiming an open spot,
but could somebody who was overlooked in the past
have grown their profile enough
to box out someone who was nominated in the past?
And I think in the case of Alison Brie from Glow on Netflix,
I think she could get in.
The first season of that show was nominated
for Best Comedy Series and had a total of 10 nominations,
including a fellow actress, Betty Gilpin, on the show
in the Supporting category.
But Alison Brie was overlooked,
and people were saying, is this because voters have
some issue with her?
They looked at the fact that she had not been nominated
for Mad Men or Community either.
But the reality was that's a jam-packed category.
She was up for a rookie show.
Only one other rookie did get nominated,
Rachel Brosnahan for Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,
who ended up winning.
So I think there's an excellent chance that Alison Brie
will bust her way into a category
that is still very crowded.
- Who else can we see possibly break through
in the other performance categories?
- Well, we were talking about This Is Us.
You could have Susan Kelechi Watson,
who plays the wife of Sterling K. Brown's character,
never nominated before but had a great season
and may benefit from sort of some fluidity in that category
which would be Supporting Actress in a Drama.
Julia Garner from Ozark has got even a SAG nomination
where they combined lead and supporting actresses.
She and Linney both got in at SAG,
which suggests there's a lot of people
that really like this show.
That could be helpful for her.
Now I'll mention Sarah Goldberg for Barry,
Rhea Seehorn from Better Call Saul, who's also on Veep,
and then of course from Game of Thrones,
there have people who have never been nominated
who on the last shot may get in there.
Sophie Turner seems like the best bet again
in Best Supporting Actress in a Drama.
- Without Littlefinger, Ramsay, and the rest,
I would have stayed a little bird all my life.
- Scott, thank you so much for all your insight
and for sitting down with me.
It'll be so interesting to see
who possibly breaks through this year
in these performance categories.
And for much more on all things Emmys from Scott,
be sure to go to thr.com/therace.