[In Week Three of Cultural Learnings’ 59th Annual Emmy Awards Nominations Preview, we’re looking at possible contenders for the Lead Actor awards in both drama and comedy. Today, we present our third set of candidates. For complete listings for the Supporting candidates from the past two weeks, check out our For Your Consideration index]
Lead Actor in a Drama
Michael C. Hall (Dexter Morgan)
Dexter
Michael C. Hall spent years on Six Feet Under as perhaps the least nominated star of the HBO series. When it ended, he was probably not expected to make a huge splash compared to his high-profile co-stars like Peter Krause. Well, Michael C. Hall proved them all wrong, landing the starring role on Showtime’s Dexter and knocking it out of the park. Dexter is a character that needs to be likable and yet contain the type of rage and emotional distance required to represent his tortured past. Hall manages to walk this fine line in his various relationships on the show, and I believe that he has one of the toughest roles of any of the drama candidates. While so many of these actors need to act a certain way, Hall needs to present a character who is acting nearly all the time, lying to all those around him. And his deft ability to do so makes him worthy of Emmy consideration.
Dexter Morgan is a character that is a forensic blood analyst by day, but moonlights as a vigilante law enforcer, torturing and murdering people who have wronged others and slipped through the cracks of the justice system. Michael C. Hall brings him to life…well, that’s the wrong term, because part of Dexter (The caring, emotional part) is dead. As the season progressed, it became harder and harder to keep up his lie, and he even found himself regaining some of his emotions with his relationship with Rita. Combine this with the fact that an ice truck killer knows Dexter’s secret and is taunting him, and you have a man in a dire situation.
And Michael C. Hall always represented that. His delivery, his mannerisms, his actions, they all fit the incredibly hard to nail down profile of vigilante murdered lying to his friends and family and incapable of controlling his anger or caring about others. Dexter is not evil: he kills only those who deserve it based on rules set forth by his adopted father. And somehow, even as he murders someone almost every episode, Hall manages to make us empathize and care about this murderer, and yet still fear who he is and what he does. And that is a performance worthy of Emmy consideration.
Episode Selection: “Shrink Wrap” (Aired November 19th, 2006)
The season finale (“Born Free”) of Dexter is what has actually been selected, and it is still a fantastic piece of acting from Michael C. Hall. With his sister in danger and the ice truck killer’s identity revealed, Dexter must face his torturous past while making a final decision: does his past define him, or can he decide his own fate with his sister and the people who care about him? Both offer the titular freedom, but in very different ways, and Hall makes that decision just as hard as it should be.
But I think that the best episode for Dexter is “Shrink Wrap”, where he heads to a therapist as part of a case and ends up finding need for his services himself. It’s a powerful performance from Hall, as the following scene shows: Dexter finally tells someone the truth, if only right before he kills them.
YouTube – “Shrink Wrap”
Lead Actor in a Comedy
Josh Radnor (Ted)
How I Met Your Mother
Ted Moseby, architect. It must be a tough job, being straight man to the fantastic Neil Patrick Harris, but Josh Radnor always seems up to the task. He is an incredibly engaging lead, simultaneously believable as a young architect and as a guy who hangs around and swordfights with his best friend. While I don’t believe that he is the cast’s strongest component, like Cobie Smulders I believe he plays an integral role in ensuring the ensemble works. Ted is the glue that holds all of these people together, in a sense, and even without comic showcases I believe that makes him worthy of Emmy consideration.
This season saw Ted in a relationship with Robin, and perhaps some of Radnor’s best work was in making this relationship seem real. Their fights, varied in scale, were handled with just the right amount of humour and drama, and Radnor showed comic versatility in the process. As their relationship came to a turning point in the season finale, I realizes that despite being your standard sitcom relationship saga I didn’t really hate Ted at any point within it. These were two real people trying to make a relationship work, and Ted acted like any other late-twenties male would in those situations. Sometimes, the symbol of a comic lead is their ability to support and ensure that the supporting players and storylines are able to shine. And I believe Radnor shines at this, and it is worthy of Emmy consideration.
Episode Selection: “Lucky Penny” (Aired February 12th, 2007)
In what is perhaps the most Ted-centric episode not taking place in his rather boring workplace setting, Lucky Penny follows Ted’s quest to get to a job interview in Chicago after missing his flight. He travels back through time with Robin trying to figure out whose fault it is that he’s late due to his court appearance for jumping a turnstile gate getting onto the subway. In the process, we get some of Ted’s trademark everyman comedy and a unique episode premise that could get voters’ attention. But since no one has been kind enough to put clips of it on YouTube, here’s a clip of Ted and Robin attempting to co-habitate.
YouTube – [Not] “Lucky Penny”
Cultural Learnings 