Canadian Sandra Oh Makes History with Emmy Nomination
Will it be Sandra Oh or Tatiana Maslany? That’s the delicious takeaway for Canadians after the announcement that both have been nominated for the high profile Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama prize at the 2018 Emmy Awards.
It’s rare to have two Canadians in the same prestige category, which includes heavyweights such as Elisabeth Moss, (The Handmaid’s Tale), Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld), Claire Foy (The Crown) and Keri Russell (The Americans).
Oh is the first Asian woman to earn an Emmy nomination for the lead actress in a drama category for the BBC’s Killing Eve. She plays an MI-5 agent who is in a comic, morbid cat and mouse chase with a psychopathic assassin.
The character is the best thing she’s done on TV, requiring her to move from extreme vulnerability to comic sensibility to action star. And that canon includes playing ambitious doctor Cristina Yang for a decade on Grey’s Anatomy, which earned her five supporting actress nominations in a row, but ultimately no prize.
I talked to Oh earlier this week from London where she said she was excited to shoot Season 2 of Killing Eve. I asked her what it would mean to get that historic nomination.
“I’m just pleased for any kind of recognition or nominations for the show. It’s such a wonderful affirmation that people like the show,” she said with some diplomacy. “That’s terrific and wonderful. And if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be but, if not, that’s OK too because I love my job.”
Oh also talked about being for many years one of the few leading Asian faces on television and, despite her success, what it meant to finally get a lead role, saying she had been “actively waiting” a long time to play such a complex character.
Maslany, meanwhile, is nominated for the final season of her Toronto-shot science fiction series Orphan Black, in which she played more than a dozen different clones, each with a distinct personality. The mechanics of playing so many different people is mind-boggling. I got a sense of that while watching her play off a humble tennis ball as she spoke lines to it on set in the east-end Toronto studio where the show was shot.
Maslany has been the LeBron James of her show, taking a little watched genre series and powering it to greatness. The bravura performance earned her the Best Actress in a Drama Emmy in 2016.
The immediate winner in all this, of course, is the BBC, which had a hand in producing both shows featuring the Canadian actresses. Orphan Black is a co-production with Bell Media, but it speaks volumes that Canadian broadcasters have not been able to sustain this level of critically acclaimed drama alone.
The heavyweight in the category is Moss of The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the classic novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, and shot in the Toronto and Hamilton areas. So Toronto also has some skin in the game here. Moss deservedly won this category last year for playing handmaiden Offred in a harrowing, deeply felt portrayal.
Wood, meanwhile, is also a contender for playing a liberated robot in Westworld, which with its themes of power, subjugation and harassment is prescient in the world of the #metoo movement.
Oh, though, will likely be the sentimental favourite. On the issues of diversity and pay parity, Hollywood is finally waking up.
It was only three years ago that Viola Davis became the first Black woman to win this category for How to Get Away With Murder, giving a stirring speech. Donald Glover became the first Black man to win for an Emmy for directing a comedy with Atlanta.
And let’s not forget another high profile Canadian, Samantha Bee, who received a nod for Outstanding Variety Talk Series. Bee had to apologize for calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless” C-word on television, but that did not deter the academy from honouring the comedian’s Full Frontal series along with The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver and The Late Late Show With James Corden.
TV has never been more interesting, or diverse, and that’s because they go hand in hand.
In the most closely watched race, Best Dramatic Series, it will come down to Gilead vs. Westeros.
Game of Thrones fell out of the Emmy nomination period last year, with Handmaid’s Tale winning the key category.
This is the first year the two will go head to head in a battle of the heavyweights. Game of Thrones led with 22 nominations, compared to 20 for Handmaid’s Tale.
Also nominated are The Americans, The Crown, Stranger Things, This is Us and Westworld.
Westworld and Saturday Night Live each had 21 nominations.
For the first time in 17 years HBO, with 108 nominations, did not lead the pack. That honour went to an online streamer for the first time, showing how the TV universe has changed, with Netflix garnering 112 nominations.
Michael Che and Colin Jost are pegged to host the 70th Emmys, which will air Sept. 17 on NBC. Here is a list of the contenders:
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie
Antonio Banderas, Genius: Picasso
Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story
Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick Melrose
Jeff Daniels, The Looming Tower
John Legend, Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesse Plemons, Black Mirror
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie
Jessica Biel, The Sinner
Laura Dern, The Tale
Michelle Dockery, Godless
Edie Falco, Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders
Regina King, Seven Seconds
Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Cult
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series
Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Ted Danson, The Good Place
Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm
Donald Glover, Atlanta
Bill Hader, Barry
William H. Macy, Shameless
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series
Pamela Adlon, Better Things
Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Allison Janney, Mom
Issa Rae, Insecure
Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish
Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
Jason Bateman, Ozark
Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us
Ed Harris, Westworld
Matthew Rhys, The Americans
Milo Ventimiglia, This Is Us
Jeffrey Wright, Westworld
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series
Claire Foy, The Crown
Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black
Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale
Sandra Oh, Killing Eve
Keri Russell, The Americans
Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld
Outstanding Reality Competition Series
The Amazing Race
American Ninja Warrior
Project Runway
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Top Chef
The Voice
Outstanding Variety Sketch Series
At Home With Amy Sedaris
Drunk History
I Love You, America
Portlandia
Saturday Night Live
Tracey Ullman’s Show
Outstanding Variety Talk Series
Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Last Week Tonight
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah
The Late Late Show With James Corden
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Outstanding Limited Series
The Alienist
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story
Genius: Picasso
Godless
Patrick Melrose
Outstanding Comedy Series
Atlanta
Barry
Black-ish
Curb Your Enthusiasm
GLOW
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Silicon Valley
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Outstanding Drama Series
Game of Thrones
The Handmaid’s Tale
Stranger Things
The Americans
This Is Us
Westworld
Source: thestar.com | by Tony Wong