Liam Cunningham – “Game Of Thrones”
Picking out the best performance each season on “Game Of Thrones” is a tough job, given the depth and breadth of its huge ensemble, and we normally end up giving the answer “anyone but Littlefinger.” With each passing year, the show does better and better with the Emmys, and we’re pretty sure that Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke and Lena Headey will all pick up further nominations this year. But if we had to pick one other performer who had a particularly good season this time around, it’s Liam Cunningham, who’s quietly been doing stellar work as smuggler-turned-power-player Davos Seaworth since Season 2. Now freed of his moony-eyed devotion to Stannis, Davos has taken up position as a sort of conscience of the show, and Cunningham (a veteran character actor best known for “Hunger” and “A Little Princess” before this) brings enormous soul to him, and somehow keeps him from ever becoming a maudlin nag. His howling confrontation of Melisandre in the finale is as good a bit of acting that the show’s ever had.
Bill Hader/Fred Armisen – “Documentary Now!’
IFC’s “Documentary Now!” was one of the real gems of the TV year, a series of remarkably accurate parodies of legendary documentaries from “Grey Gardens” to “The Thin Blue Line.” And though the show’s craft was indelible, its greatest achievement might be in giving Bill Hader and Fred Armisen their best-ever showcases. The pair are among the most versatile performers in “SNL” history, but they’re going much deeper than sketch here — whether they’re playing hipster journalists or riffing on “Nanook Of The North,” there’s a depth and richness to the work they’re doing, not just showcasing their vast ranges, but really making the characters feel like people. At its best — the two-part Eagles riff that ends the series — there’s a melancholy and humanity to the performances that pushes it into an area beyond comedy. If we had to pick one to nominate, it’d probably be Hader, but the two feel pretty inseparable in the end.
Kathryn Hahn – “Transparent”
The “Transparent” ensemble is perfect, without anything even close to a weak link involved, and even though the show managed three acting nods (and won two) last year, we could quite happily see it continue to pick up nods for those ignored like Jay Duplass, Amy Landecker (our pick for this feature last year), Judith Light, Hari Nef, Cherry Jones and co. But Kathryn Hahn might be the one who’s most deserving this year. The actress was a quiet asset to the show in the first season as the lovely Rabbi Raquel, but she proved more and more crucial across the second run. In a show that sometimes features the Pfefferman children being deeply immature and, well, childish, Hahn does something very difficult for an actor and makes Raquel’s warmth, decency and maturity utterly compelling to watch. Despite the direction the plot takes her, Hahn says she will be back for a third season, though she might have a better chance at Emmy love with Jill Soloway’s next show, “I Love Dick.”
Michael K. Williams – “Hap & Leonard”
There can be few faces more associated with the golden age of TV than that of Michael K. Williams: the iconically scarred performer broke out as Omar on “The Wire,” but he’s since had a number of other great performances including “Boardwalk Empire” and the currently airing “The Night Of” (though his only Emmy nomination came for “Bessie” last year). On the surface, his turn in the underseen, pleasingly low-key Sundance crime show “Hap & Leonard” isn’t all that different from what he’s done before, in that he plays an openly gay man with some killing experience. But the show’s tone makes his Leonard a completely different proposition from Omar: the lazy, Southern feel; a lightness of touch; the easy banter and bone-deep chemistry with James Purefoy’s Hap. It plays into a facility for comedy that Williams increasingly gets to showcase, and one of the best uses of the star since he first broke out.
Eve Hewson – “The Knick”
Last year, “The Knick” failed to get any acting or writing nominations despite being one of the best things on TV, and with the second season being a minor dip from the first, we can’t imagine it’ll do any better this time. That’s a shame for the people who should have been nominated first time around — Steven Soderbergh and André Holland, who we went to bat for in this feature last year and who was just as superb in the second go-round. And it’s a shame for those who should have had attention for performances that grew with time, principally Eve Hewson. Bono’s daughter showed that she was hardly a nepotistic hire with the first season, but as the second delved further into the background of her Nurse Elkins, Hewson’s performance deepened in a big way. In particular, the focus on her relationship with her father (Stephen Spinella) took her to darker and darker places, culminating in a euthanasia scene that was a dark highlight of the show. We can’t wait to see what Hewson does next.
Glad you included Liam Cunningham (an exceptional actor in everything he does) and Rhea Seehorn. I would also include Lou Diamond Phillips from Longmire. While the show flies under the radar and is generally an old-time procedural, the writing and acting throughout elevate it beyond its ilk. Phillips is a standout in the show, able to convey kindness, thoughtfulness, geniality — all with a potentially explosive interior.