FYC: Lisa Kudrow for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy
Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 12:01PM
Team Experience sharing their personal Emmy dream picks every day at Noon. Here's Manuel on Lisa Kudrow...
For anyone who watched the criminally underseen first season of Lisa Kudrow’s The Comeback, you know how the former Phoebe Buffay created a portrait of an actress so intent on controlling her image and reclaiming her sitcom career that the dark humor and awkwardness of it all was perhaps too much to bear. If the first season was an excruciating exercise in reality TV satire, the second season was an indictment of Hollywood sexism that used the show’s meta structure (Valerie gets cast as the thinly veiled version of herself in an HBO show about the very show she starred in The Comeback’s first season) to force us to yes, laugh at Valerie’s seeming cluelessness but also to examine why and how those laughs are being elicited. There’s humor in Valerie quite literally living out the demented humiliations that a former writer thrusts upon her as part of making his HBO show “edgy” but with every laugh at Valerie (in a trunk full of snakes, standing awkwardly next to two naked women, going down on Seth Rogen) there was a performance that asked you to empathize with this yes, self-deluded character.
The final episode of the season "Valerie Gets What She Really Wants" is centered on the Emmys themselves!
A consummate physical comedienne (exhibit A: the cupcake stunt from season one, exhibit B: the entire Groundlings sequence this season), Kudrow really got a chance to also flex plenty of her dramatic chops, using her malleable face to project the multitude of contradictions in a character that spends most of her time smiling. But behind those smiles (needy and embarrassing, ecstatic yet demure, quivering when all-too real) lies a depth that few performers could bring to Valerie.
The beauty (and skill) of Kudrow’s performance lies in the fact that as Valerie she is constantly playing to various audiences at the same time. Always aware of the camera, Valerie is always performing for an imagined audience and it is in Kudrow’s subtleties (a quick sigh, half an eye-roll, a half-hearted smile) that she tracks the way Valerie is slowly losing track of when she’s performing for the camera and when she’s merely performing for herself. Indeed, the moments when the show’s behind-the-scenes format (an artificial “reality” in itself) and Valerie’s impetus to be real collide are the best of the series.
"First, I'd like to thank the amazing Seth Rogen. You made me better, Seth. Paulie G. for writing me this wonderful part, for being... Everyone at HBO for believing in me, the members of the television academy... This wonderful honor, and my husband, Mark, who's always there for me."
Here’s hoping the Emmys reward Kudrow’s work in front of the camera (she also co-wrote many of this season’s episodes) with a nomination. I can then begin day-dreaming about the possibility of Kudrow winning for an episode in which Valerie herself wins an Emmy, and besting Julia Louis Dreyfuss (who beat Kudrow when she was nominated for this very same performance nine years ago!).
Emmy, FYC, Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback, comedy
Reader Comments (18)
cherish is the word i use to describe
all the feeling that i have hiding here for you inside
you don't know how many times i've wished that i had told you
you don't know how many times i've wished that i could hold you
you don't know how many times i've wished that i could mould you
into someone who could cherish me as much as i cherish you
cherish is the word
I co-sign this x 100. I don't watch enough TV to know the competition, but I have a hard time believing that there were five better performances than hers this year.
100% agreeance. Kudrow was brilliant in both seasons. Give her all the awards.
Not only was this an all-time great character, but it was an all-time great performance.
Whether Kudrow is nominated or wins and Emmy for the second season of The Comeback is irrelevant. The fact there was a second season and Kudrow delivered that performance is rewarding enough for me. I don't believe that it needs validation from an awards body in order to be what it is: the greatest comedic performance I have ever seen. Never has an actress shown/tried to conceal so many layers and behavioral variations (sometimes in a matter of seconds). It goes something like this: I'm so happy, but I can't show exactly how I feel. I have to act happy and convey my happiness, but not too much because I don't want to look desperate and pretentious. I want to be perceived as humble and gracious, so maybe just a smile here will do. Oops, laughter wants to come out. Hold it in. Take a deep breath. Shrug one shoulder, find your better angle for that camera. Find your light. Oh, and that other camera. Say your lines. Find the right intonation. No, that didn't come out right. Jane! Jane!
Just pure bliss!
I've already said this in a previous post, but i'll totally cry out of happiness if she wins. She deserves it. Not only for the comedy but she can break your heart so easily with just her eyes. Plus, it'll be lovely to have Val AND Lisa get Emmys.
Go, Red!
To echo Derreck., no nomination/win would make me happier than seeing Kudrow/Cherish succeed this year at the Emmys. And i'd want dual acceptance speeches, one traditional and another just Valerie constantly referring to the camera and calling out to Jane for her not to use this take.
With Amy Poehler's last season of Parks and Rec coupled with the always amazing Lisa Kudrow, surely Julia Louis Dreyfuss will win her 55th Emmy award.
It's hands down the performance of the year on TV, if not the decade. But it really depends whether people "get" it, or even saw it. God bless Valerie Cherish.
I'm watching season 1 for the first time, and she is brilliant! So funny, so much going on. I can't wait to get to season 2.
Brilliant brilliant brilliant season of TV. She deserves the Emmy a hundred times over.
kudrow was so amazing in the comeback, especially season 2. a performance that grows in stature with repeated viewing. complex, layered, sad, such a showcase. her interactions with her gay hairdresser and her husband. a rich performance. it's totally the gena rowlands-woman under the influence of tv sitcom acting.
Kudrow is such an amazingly talented and underrated actress. She deserves to win big for The Comeback.
Gawd, I need to watch this! I've always felt Lisa was a genius.
Love this post. The finale totally should be her submission, the part at the end is heartbreaking and could totally be a meta moment!
But on the other hand, JLD is still being BRILLIANT in Veep.
Makes me wish I had HBO.
Kudrow was genius in the 'Valerie Faces the Critics' ep. I hope she submits that one for Emmy consideration, because her "I'm not no one" speech is award-worthy in and of itself.
I watched the first season while visiting California ten years ago, fell in love with Valerie and her awkward universe, and immediately bought it on dvd when it was released here in France. By now there is no plan for a french release of the second season and i had the hardest time finding it online. But i did !!!!!! And it was still as good to follow Valerie's new adventures. I really hope Kudrow wins the Emmy this time because what she created with this character is totally unique and as much as i loooove Louis-Dreyfus on Veep, i think a fourth consecutive Emmy isn't reaaaally necessary !