FYC: Lauren Weedman for Supporting Actress, Comedy
Monday, June 15, 2015 at 1:01PM Team Experience shares their personal dream picks in multiple Emmy categories as voting begins. Here's Adam on an actress we're all hoping to see a lot more of... - Editor
Lauren Weedman was to the first season of Looking what Joan Cusack was to Working Girl. They each drifted in and out of the main narrative, never the primary focus, but neither restricted entirely to the background. Their sharply delivered lines punctured their scenes, dick-slapping the audience, demanding attention. While they may have been vital to their best friend’s stories, they couldn’t tell their own stories.
During the second season, Looking realized the strength of Weedman’s performance, allowing the indispensable Doris to come into her own as a character. Adding another individual to their mosaic of souls wholeheartedly discovering who she was, searching for where she wanted to be, and loving the people that surrounded her elevated the show. We followed Doris as she dealt with the repercussions of losing a parent and revealing her childhood of abuse. We championed Doris when she reclaimed her autonomy by confronting an unhealthy codependent relationship. We swooned when she allowed herself the possibility of a romantic future by finally exposing her vulnerabilities without the masking of her humor.
Lauren Weedman positively throttled me like a famished crocodile death-rolling a dehydrated antelope during the Doric-centric episode, “Looking for Plot.” That raw, acerbic wit, and melancholic longing Weedman was able to express with only the constricting of her chin muscles split my sides and welled my tear ducts simultaneously. Her fucking CHIN made me feel feels I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling. Jesus.
We will no longer be able to follow this group of friends and lovers around each week but when I reminisce on my times spent with the boys and gal of Looking, I’ll always cherish Lauren Weedman’s performance as Doris. I'll cherish it in much the same way I once, while at a funeral, devoured an entire Edible Arrangement centerpiece while fellow mourners shot me disapproving looks as I selfishly grieved. It may seem reductive to compare Lauren Weedman’s affecting, poignant, barbed performance to that of a gloriously displayed collection of sculpted fruit, but each supported me while I accepted circumstances I couldn’t change, and helped me move on.
Previously:
The Americans
Jane the Virgin
Cara Seymour, The Knick
Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Ruth Wilson, The Affair
Matt Czuchry, The Good Wife
Gwendolyn Christie, Game of Thrones
Coming This Week:
Ann Dowd, The Leftovers ...and more!
Reader Comments (19)
Could not agree more! She's one of those who, if she gets in, has the most killer episode submission ever with "Looking for a Plot." She was one of the highlights of Looking's really strong second season. Hopefully the Looking movie just has her and Malik as happy as can be. I loved their relationship.
The "Looking for a Plot" episode makes me tear up just thinking about it. Lauren Weedman would definitely get my vote for Supporting Actress. She nails every scene she's in.
Lauren Weedman was best in show in many of her Looking episodes. This would be such a deserving nomination. But I really think this is not gonna happen, not even a chance of happening. Sad.
YES! THIS! 10000% THIS!!! "Looking for a Plot" was just so moving and quiet and tragic and wonderful... gah. One of two perfect Looking episodes.
Agreed!
I'd also nominate Jonathan Groff for best actor in a comedy, though I know that's devisive.
Hear hear. This is the kind of rich performance which would make me jump in the air if it got in. The fact that it will miss because of network heavyweights and defaults really dispirits me, because if enough people loudly go, "Look over here; incredible work being done!" the motion picture academy occasionally notice. Alas, the television academy so seldom do.
San FranCinema - I am absolutely in agreement with you regarding Groff. Such a powerful, hilarious, tremendous performance.
Yesssss
Good heavens, yes! She pulls Janneys left and right! (Janneys are that thing when you suddenly know all this stuff about a character's backstory, but you're not even sure how the actor conveyed it all.)
SanFran, I've always thought it was Patrick who was divisive, not Groff.
Yes, yes, yes to all of this. Everyone knows my feelings about this show and this particular episode so I won't rehearse them here. Weedman would be such a deserving nominee and on that submission alone, would easily walk away with the award.
Kyle, I may need to begin using "pulling a Janney" on a regular basis.
Adding one more voice to the chorus of YES-es. Weedman is absolutely fantastic in every episode of Looking, and if only enough people watched (or, ya know, if HBO actually pushed the show AT ALL), she'd be a shoo-in, especially for Looking for a Plot, a great episode that's a perfect showcase for her incredible talent.
I feel like Groff's FYC campaign begins and ends with THAT gif of him at the Halloween party. Comedy GOLD, folks.
Yasss.
Except I don't think it will happen and Looking being considered a Comedy probably doesn' help her either. She's funny but her strongest work is exactly when she stops being funny and bares herself.
Totally agree with everything that's already been said. I miss this show so much already!
I have nothing original to say, but I love her so, so much.
If the Emmy people actually watched episode submissions and voted based on non-external factors then I can't imagine a rational world in which she wasn't nominated and even won. Alas, they probablydon't even know Looking exists and won't watch the tape for a supporting actress whose name most of them sadly probably haven't heard of. This was a perfect episode with a perfect performance at its centre.
I think Lauren is a great actress and love her in LOOKING,she has perfect comic timing,although this show isn't a comedy and is the wrong category ,DRAMA is where it should be.ALL the cast are fabulous.I really hope they are all nominated,they win and the show wins too,so hopefully HBO will reconsider cancelling the series!
I'll take the opposing view. I find Doris to be a fine character and Lauren Weedman's performance to be satisfactory, but "best" of the year? I don't know about that. I felt like she was operating in two modes only-- "best friend of gays" and "exasperated best friend of gays." I don't get the love, frankly.
Did anybody see her and Joel McHale ripping it up in Kittens in a Cage? I literally spit out my dinner. Hilarious.