1. Carrie Preston
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If you only know Carrie Preston from one thing, you don’t
know Carrie Preston. From her seemingly-addled but disarmingly brilliant lawyer
Elsbeth Tascioni in The Good Wife to the proud, battle-scarred mother and waitress
Arlene Fowler in True Blood, Preston exhibits a range and ability that is
rarely seen among television actresses today. She’s so good at disappearing into
her characters that you may not realize how often you’ve seen her, as she’s
played often minor but never forgettable roles in such shows as The Following,
Person of Interest, Lost, and even Arrested Development, among others. She may
be a victim of her own success, as her ability to fall so seamlessly into her
roles may be why she hasn’t been given a nod for a front and center role on
T.V. YET.
2. Rick Hoffman
Rick Hoffman has been around for a while, but he just may
have found the role he was born to play in ladder-climbing, underappreciated
legal genius Louis Litt on USA’s Suits. When we first meet Louis, he’s a petty
tyrant, terrorizing the associates under his command while making clumsy,
desperate power grabs at those above, but Hoffman’s ability to humanize the
character has been unparalleled, providing us a window into that kid who got picked
last for gym in a man’s body, just wanting the respect of the cool kids and
willing to do anything to get it. The last season of Suits has seen Hoffman
with the opportunity to take Louis though a wide swath of pathos, losing the
love of his life, his self-respect, and his job, before rising from the ashes
to march forward and attempt to take the power that (at least he believes) has
always been rightfully his. Hoffman has been more than up to the task, and his
performances this season have easily been Emmy-worthy.
3. Eddie Marsan
There aren't any weak performances on Showtime’s Ray Donovan,
but Eddie Marsan, as washed up boxer Terry Donovan, may be the least appreciated.
British actors playing Americans is nothing new, but this London native who has
won a mantel full of awards and has won distinction on both stage and screen
brings a humanity to this working-class Boston guy that is both extremely moving and quite
subtle. Marsan’s Donovan, with a Parkinson’s condition possibly brought on by
his father’s poor management of his boxing career, and a fragile dream of
running a boxing gym in Ireland, evokes sympathy, but at the same time, projects
great strength. There’s a raw honesty to Terry that’s very appealing, and it’s
to Marsan’s credit that he allows this character to shine a bit, but just
enough as is appropriate among the larger-than-life characters that inhabit this show.
I’m of course, partial to the great writers who are
populating the T.V. landscape in this “Golden Age,” but let’s never forget that
T.V. is a collaborative art, and without great performances by strong acting
talents, it wouldn’t be nearly what it is today.
