We polled Team Experience yesterday with several questions on the brand new Emmy nominations. In part one we explored fav nominations and anger-inducing snubs. Here are four more pressing questions -- and please provide your own answers to compliment our teams in the comments!
- What We Do in the Shadows surprised with a big nomination haul but none for its actors. Who you think is most deserving from that hilarious show?
- What happened to Unbelievable? Only 4 nominations and only 1 acting nod.
- Mrs America landed three Supporting Actress nods: Uzo Aduba, Margot Martindale and Tracey Ullman. Were those your three favourite from that series?
- Which acting category is the sexiest?
Our individual answers are after the jump...
Which actor on What We Do in the Shadows most deserved a nomination?
SPENCER COILE: Mark Proksch’s dryness to the energy-sucking Colin Robinson is the perfect antidote to the show’s general kookiness. He should’ve cracked Supporting Actor.
NATHANIEL: Nominations all around. But if forced to choose it would be a three-way dead heat between Harvey Guillen as the underestimated and much-abused familiar, Mark Proksch's inspired deadpan glee as the energy vampire Colin Robinson, and Natasia Demetriou as Nadja (though she has the misfortune of being the always stacked Best Actress in a Comedy race). Oh and Vanessa Bayer 1000% deserved a Guest Actress in a Comedy Emmy (not just nomination) for her inspired performance as emotional vampire "Evie". This is exactly the kind of performance that category is ideal for but always denies. I was laughing so hard my face hurt I watched the episode three times tp not miss any comic beat. This hasn't happened to me since the heyday of 30 Rock.
GABRIEL MAYORA:It’s such a finely tuned ensemble that I’d have been happy with all five principals being singled out. If I had to choose, I’d go with Harvey Guillén because he has the most surprisingly fun moments in the show and he’s such a badass in the action sequences.
What happened to Unbelievable?
ERIC BLUME: I think the first episode of Unbelievable is such a difficult sit (watching Kaitlin Dever retell her story over and over and over and over again) that many viewers opt out early. Of course, that retelling is crucial to the narrative and the power of the piece, and Dever is superb, but I've talked to a lot of people who find the first episode "tedious" and they don't wish to continue. It's criminal that at least one of the leads (Dever or Wever) didn't make the cut over a few of the less inspired choices.
JUAN CARLOS OJANO: I am furious about this. Doesn't make any sense. Wever is a two-time Emmy winner and Dever's showcase is the gripping pilot episode. If you watch this show (and it seems like they did), you cannot separate those three performances. The impact of the acting trio is how they differ in acting styles, intensities, and characterizations and how those beautifully come together.
EUROCHEESE: I'll be honest - Collette was the stand out in the show, especially because we've seen such a range of parts from her so recently. She's so unsung for her lovely work (her incredible Hereditary performance, her Gooped Knives Out showing, and now this - three women who have almost nothing in common), and I hope we're building up momentum to an eventual "she doesn't have an Oscar yet?" run in coming years. I'm just happy she made it in.
MURTADA ELFADL: The lead actress category was stacked and the show premiered a long time ago. Happy Colette managed to stick in voters’ minds.
BEN MILLER: The Emmys only love misery porn when men are involved (ahem...Chernobyl). When you spotlight a woman and the terrible things that are happening to her, they could care less.
SPENCER COILE: I’d rather not discuss the glaring omission of Kaitlyn Dever or Merritt Wever. I need more time to grieve.
Who were the three best Supporting Actresses in Mrs America?
ERIC BLUME: Azuba, Martindale, and Ullman all inhabit their characters beautifully, and it's great to see them all in there, but all three are Emmy darlings, so no big surprises. I'd have gone with Rose Byrne (finding some comic resignation to Gloria Steinem), Ari Graynor (tracking a complicated sexual awakening with sharp precision), and Sarah Paulson (who is required to make quicksilver transitions in her big episode). But Mrs. America was graced with probably the most superb acting across the board of any show this year.
SPENCER COILE: I’m not upset with the three who made it, but I prefer Aduba, Byrne and Paulson. The Paulson-centric episode is one of the highlights of the year so far.
EUROCHEESE: Azuba and Ullman blew my socks off. Martindale was great, but she's always great. I think I'd give her slot to Paulson, who I loved so much in her drunken stumble through the women's conference, leading to accidental enlightenment.
LYNN LEE: Gun to head, I'd swap out Aduba for Sarah Paulson - because Paulson, and because she manages to create a fully developed, even sympathetic three-dimensional character out of a fictional "composite" anti-ERA activist. But I'm 100% on board the Margo Martindale train - hers is my favorite performance in the series - and also really liked Tracey Ullman, whose unlikely casting as Betty Friedan works surprisingly well.
GABRIEL MAYORA:Aduba deserves a spin-off series of her own. I’d have gone with Aduba, Paulson (the emotional cornerstone of the series), and Ari Graynor, who gets the best line reading of the series (“oh my God, did you just make up a case?”)
MURTADA ELFADL: I think the Academy made the right choice give or take Ari Graynor. I loved her performance but when I think about who of the three nominated I would’ve replaced her with I come up empty.
NATHANIEL R: It's hard to argue with their choices as all three were superb. I am that rare person who does not love everything Margot Martindale does and this is my favourite of her performance since Paris Je T'Aime. But honestly, Mrs America should have hogged the whole category, give or take Allison Janney in Bad Education (also weirdly shut out). I'm especially missing Rose Byrne's tired but hugely charismatic Steinem.
Which acting category is the sexiest?
BEN MILLER: I'll use Best Comedy Actress as an excuse to extoll my eternal love for Linda Cardellini, but I'll happily take the other five ladies, including Catherine "I will be 95 and still sexy!" O'Hara
GABRIEL MAYORA: Supporting Actor in a Drama hands down, though I wouldn’t kick the Lead Actor in a Comedy nominees out of bed.
ERIC BLUME: That Lead Actress in a Drama category contains six extraordinarily sexy women, each sexy in her own way across a wide range of ages and looks, but all similar in the steely intelligence they bring to their roles.
JUAN CARLOS OJANO: Limited Series Actor, easily. Anything with Paul Mescal already wins any 'sexiest category', but just look at his company: Jeremy Irons, Hugh Jackman, Jeremy Pope, Mark Ruffalo. That's literally a group scenario fantasy right there. Please excuse my thirst.
SPENCER COILE: Pretty sure I’m preaching to a parched choir when I say Lead Actor in a Limited Series/TV Movie. Five brilliant turns from five dreamboats? Winners, all of them!
LYNN LEE: Lead actor in a miniseries/TV movie. I'm showing my age here, but any category that includes both Hugh Jackman and Mark Ruffalo automatically vaults to "sexiest" in my book. Add in the two hot young dudes (Mescal, Pope) and the unmistakable velvet drawl of Jeremy Irons - a bona fide thinking (wo)man's heartthrob back in the day who's still quite the handsome older gentleman - and you've got a panty-dropper for just about anyone.
Your turn, readers, sound off!