Emmy FYC: Justin Theroux in "The Leftovers"
Monday, June 12, 2017 at 6:30PM For the next two weeks with Emmy nominating ballots in progress Team Experience will be sharing personal favorites. Here's Eric Blume...
When you talk about Justin Theroux, inevitably you turn to the subject of fairness. On one level, is it fair to the rest of us mortals that Justin Theroux looks like this...
Then again, it’s exactly because Justin Theroux looks like that that he is grossly undervalued. Usually, if someone who looked like that was even just able to spell his own name, he would be fawned over. But in the acting game, male beauty is rebuffed, and awards bodies tend to eschew acknowledgement if the male actor isn’t an everyman.
Part of the glory, ironically, of Theroux’s acting in HBO’s The Leftovers is that he so deeply inhabits the everyman, in the true sense of that term. The trajectory for his character, Kevin, was of loving husband and father, trying to protect and save his family, as men do. He couldn’t understand how to bring his family together, how to truly be vulnerable enough to connect. And Theroux’s physical power was the perfect foil for his paralyzing inner fear...
The creative team behind The Leftovers must have realized by the end of the first season what superhuman actors they had with Theroux, Carrie Coon, and others in the cast. For while that first season had a fierce brutality that packed a wallop, they chose a much riskier path for the second two seasons. It was in this third miraculous season of the show that Theroux revealed Kevin’s tremulous, beating heart. The show pushed the boundaries of the “faith story” along the lines of a Carl Theodore Dreyer or Lars von Trier movie, but went on to attempt true flights of fantasy.
[VAGUE SPOILERS OF A KIND AHEAD] Theroux became the main warrior for the more phantasmagoric storylines, as Kevin entered alternate universes as an international assassin, politician, and savior. When the confines of reality were broken in the show, Theroux effortless expanded his naturalistic style to carry off huge leaps in traditional logic, transporting the audience with him to a dreamier, deeper level of acceptance and perception. He was able to make you believe perhaps he was the next Christ, but at the same time he was ultimately never more or less than human.
Theroux’s acting has no ego, and he remains completely at the disposal of the storytellilng. He manages to rise and fall to the demands of the character and the plot, no matter how extreme the situation. Many moments in the show have Kevin literally jumping, diving, or drowning, and those moments are apt metaphors for Theroux’s acting. He was almost always jumping into the sky for a flight into somewhere celestial, or diving down into an abyss of dirt and terror. But Theroux is always, always going off the platform fearlessly. [/SPOILERS]
The Leftovers gave us three punishing seasons of savagery and grace. And in Theroux, the creators found the epitome of these two qualities. Theroux was able to fill Kevin’s brutal journey with astonishing beauty.
Other FYCs
Music for Big Little Lies
Samira Wiley in Orange is the New Black
Judith Light in Transparent
Master of None for Best Comedy
Comedy Moms in Best Actress
The Americans for Best Drama
Aubrey Plaza in Legion
Difficult People for Best Comedy
Reader Comments (14)
many thanks
Have they published the pdf with all the contenders in every acting category?
@Peggy Sue
Yes
http://www.emmys.com/ballots/2017
Theroux is a great actor, there's no doubt about it. But what he doesn't seem to demonstrate is an ability to "look" the part, and this mean that a middle-aged, small-town police chief doesn't have a chiseled, eight-pack body like Theroux's. His acting may be choice, but the perfect specimen of the human physique belies the setting and sensibility of the character he's playing, in my opinion. (Was he described as an Adonis in the book?)
His real-life wife suffers from this "impossible Hollywood body" as well. While it's indeed impressive—a lot of effort goes into it!—it also can take the audience out of the character they're supposed to *see* and feel. Which is why Charlize Theron couldn't be a supermodel-looking Aileen Wurnos, and Robert De Niro couldn't be a Schwartzenegger-esque Ragging Bull toward the end. You have to risk getting over 10 percent body fat to embody the character that is an ordinary guy.
The trio of Theroux, Coon and Brenneman should all be nominated and win if the world were just this year. Brave, bracing and, for such a dark show, funny performances.
I'm conflicted on this show. The show is really not that great and, at times, actively bad but the cast is to die for. Wish they were in a better show. Agree that Justin is under-rated; not win-worthy but in the top five? Definitely.
@ Mareko: The book was much different from the television show. Kevin wasn't even the police chief of Mapleton, but its mayor. There was no Jarden or Miracle, but the events of the novel ended after season one. Kevin was an All-American ex-football star. Maybe blonde or light-colored hair as I recall? I might not classify him as the Adonis that is Justin Theroux, but he was no damn Kevin James either. Think Patrick Wilson or a bulkier Damian Lewis minus the ginger. Regardless, I completely bought into Theroux in this role that he should have won an Emmy for by now. Hope that helps.
LaLaBland -- Thanks!!! xxx
The Leftovers is a totally singular, exhilarating, astounding TV experience. That score still haunts, not to mention everything else.
The series and especially its Superb cast needs to stop being ignored by the Emmys and must be nominated this year.
While Theroux is amazing, Carrie Coon is far and away the MVP of this series! The finale alone should have secured her all the awards.
His work with Ann Dowd alone this year is worthy of a nomination (here's to hoping she scores a Guest Actress nomination-she's more than earned it). I love The Leftovers unabashedly, and while I don't think the third season equaled the slow growth of Season 1 or the acting master class of the second season, this is judging on a very steep curve-Emmy love would be more than welcome for pretty much anyone attached.
Carrie Coon overshadowed everyone else on that show and that is a huge huge feat. She s amazing. Amy Brenneman comes second especially in the episode dedicated to her. Theroux is very strong but weakest of the three. I agree that his physique played against him. It was hard to buy him as small town sherrif. It s a real problem with 35-55 year old actors nowadays. How to cope with celebrity demands and still be believable in real people roles.
I agree that Theroux, otherwise a good actor, is far too perfect-looking for his Leftovers role. Couldn't he have just quit working out, even just cut back some, to look more the part? This sort of body-too-good thing has been happening in films and television for far too long. I'll never forget Matt Damon as Tom Ripley looking super buff in the beach scene in The Talented Mr. Ripley ('99) and thinking, "Yeah, no: no one would look like that unless they were working out regularly - like, constantly."
What about Ventimiglia in This Is Us? No one had that body in the 80s! Even Vulture wrote a whole piece about it.
What a bizarre way to trim your treasure trail. Like... that just looks odd. (I don't watch The Leftovers, but I do watch gifs of Justin Theroux)