It is no secret how much I love all things awards from the pre-nomination chatter to the red carpet decadence. Film award season stretches for months dominating the start of the year and now it is time for TV to bask in the glory of all things accolades; who deserves them, who should be nominated but probably won’t and the standout moments from television from the past year. Taking into account what will qualify as recency bias means certain things might get forgotten (anything that aired between June 1, 2015 and May 31 2016) so Mad Men is out (the finale aired May 17), but something like Show Me a Hero is in (which means Oscar Isaac in a tux hopefully). And maybe this is the year Emmy voters started watching The Americans.
The Hollywood Reporter’s roundtable season is one way to mark the official start of the Emmy chat period although Gold Derby has also been on fire with their one on one chats (including this great one with Poor Martha herself, Alison Wright) in recent weeks. A few months ago Jennifer Lopez posted a pictured on Instagram (which she sadly took down) of what turned out to be the drama actress roundtable; pretty much from that point on I have been anticipating the arrival of this discussion because this lineup is on fire.
Diversity or rather a lack of dominated award season and the actress roundtable and subsequent cover was a clear example of how Hollywood is failing, With regards to TV this cover and other recent ones have done a much better job at showcasing a variety of women who are leading the way in both comedy and drama. This isn’t to say TV is always the beacon of light in this department as Kristen Warner pointed out when the 2014 cover was released and it was only last year that a black woman finally won for Best Actress in a Drama Series with Viola Davis crushing it on every level with her acceptance speech. Opportunity is key and TV is currently offering a lot more of this.
Now to this year’s cover and this is an amazing group of actresses covering cable and network shows (and surprisingly no streaming) with Regina King and Kerry Washington straddling both with American Crime/The Leftovers and Scandal/Confirmation.
You can watch videos from this roundtable over at The Hollywood Reporter including Sarah Paulson talking about sexism in relation to her role on American Crime Story as well as in her career in general, Regina King discussing directing and acting and Kirsten Dunst mentions how hard TV is work load wise in comparison to film (and she also mentions her friend Lizzy Caplan, which I of course adore). Sex scenes, producing, before they found fame are also covered and I’m looking forward to watching the whole conversation.
In terms of styling the drama actress cover tends to go in the dark and moody direction (of last year), black and white (see 2013) or pastels (as with 2014). Bold and bright is for the comedy actresses. Here it is pastels again with some white thrown in for good measure and they all look great facially, but I don’t love that Julianna Margulies and Jennifer Lopez are blending into the background. I think Sarah Paulson’s pleats are fantastic and Regina King’s pink dress is probably my other standout. I think Cannes has set a super high bar for Kirsten Dunst and this is just fine, but just that.
Read the whole roundtable discussion here.
Keep an eye out for more roundtable related discussions/covers in the coming weeks. Plus more Emmys chat soon!
TV Ate My Wardrobe 