I don't think MM's role in true detective was a challenging roll. Basically got into his creepy zone and did that the whole time. Walter White is a far more complicated character that evolved over time and had many more layers to the charcter.
EMMYS 2014:: Bryan Cranston or Matthew McConaughey? (Best Actor)
- Thread starter Peteyandjia
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I don't know what show you were watching. MM's role contained all the range in a single season that Cranston's role asked of him in his entire run.
I'm glad that HBO's lobby didn't strongarm its way to a win. That is the thing I find most gratifying about the ceremony. After the Jeff Daniel Emmy and that article Dragon or somebody posted about the number of voters that HBO employs, I was worried we would experienced the Miramax-effect, and I would never know for certain if MM won genuinely. I don't know why people are getting so hung up on the win. In a race like this it doesn't really mean anything. This year's ceremony was defined by the two-titan clash in Breaking Bad's swan song against True Detective's historically great pilot season, and McConaughey vs. Cranston as an personified extension of that.
That's what defined this year's ceremony: the names in the hat. Not the name in the envelope.
Mathew easily, he has been really dilivering the last couple of years. Finally doing some real acting instead of just pleasing the ladies in chick flicks. I thought in the last couple season's of breaking bad he would be really dark but I just didn't get that from Byran, the character / how it was played was just annoying by the final season and I just wanted him to die so it would be over.
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Hamm had basically no chance against Cranston and McConaughey. That category was FUCKING RIDICULOUS but at the end of the day, it was a 2 horse race.
True, names in the hat was a very strong year for male leads but Cranston was not to be beat this year, it's was what his 4th for Breaking Bad? Last season was his best by far imo. I don't want to knock MM's performance too much because I liked it a lot too but to me there was only one choice this year.
greenmamba
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Did MM even smile once during the whole season? Woody's character had more range and he nailed it.
Doesn't matter though, Spacey should have won.
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I'm not sure Woody was better than MM but I definitely think his performance is underrated and gets overshadowed by Matthew's.
greenmamba
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Both guys nailed their roles. I think Woody's character was more difficult for the range. Therefore I rank Woody's performance better than Matthew's.
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I haven't seen the bbc source material for HoC, but I can see atleast 2 more season. I'm thinking atleast one season has to be dedicated to his first real election efforts.
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I smell a hipster
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I am happy that Cranston won. It was well-deserved.
If it hasn't been mentioned already, it is worth pointing out that Cranston, Anna Gunn, & Moira Walley-Beckett (writer) all submitted themselves for nomination in their respective categories in "Ozymandias," the fourteenth episode of season five of Breaking Bad.
This episode is widely considered to be one of, if not the greatest, episode of television writing in history and "one of the greatest episodes of television ever broadcast."
If it hasn't been mentioned already, it is worth pointing out that Cranston, Anna Gunn, & Moira Walley-Beckett (writer) all submitted themselves for nomination in their respective categories in "Ozymandias," the fourteenth episode of season five of Breaking Bad.
This episode is widely considered to be one of, if not the greatest, episode of television writing in history and "one of the greatest episodes of television ever broadcast."
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Maybe it's time to take a shower.
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I'm the hipster?
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I don't know, but you smell bad.
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Not to me. Bryan just showed us what we already knew. Seriously, what he won at this years Emmys was the same as what he won last year and the year before that. That's not bad per say but when comparing something we already know to Mathews performance that know one saw coming, its not a landslide, considering the competition but its a clear win.
True Detective got snubbed a lot last night. Shit, I thought breaking bad ended over a year ago. I love breaking bad but the Ozy episode is what caused ripples in their last season.
True Detective was great start to finish along with Mathew.
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Agreed
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I would be outraged that Paul won over him (the least deserved win, IMO), but I'm still most outraged at this year's ceremony by the omission of Rory McCann in that category. I felt he was the runaway winner with Woody his only legitimate challenge.
Mandy Patinkin gave his best performance so far in Homeland, but unfortunately he gave it in a season where the show's great early promise died a gasping, gurgling death. Jon Voight has been spectacular, but I'm not sure how much of that is the Cartman effect. Poor Jim Carter doesn't stand a chance with all the emphasis on range and method acting. A performance with a stiff upper lip like his won't get any credit for nuance. Josh Charles and Peter Dinklage outright didn't deserve their nominations. There were much better options.
No, one of these two should have won, and that seemed pretty obvious to pretty much everyone. If you're going to go hipster, then Hamm's last season here for Mad Men was the one overlooked.
"Range" in acting isn't a linear slider between smiles and tears. It's not even necessarily an emotional gamut. MM ran across both globes, roundly, and most brilliantly, I think, by pointing us to Rust's introspection, and allowing his cynicism to demonstrate the things he's really thinking and feeling rather than exhibiting them outwardly & directly. Often this would manifest with Rust's mania, and how things he once felt and believed were affecting him that much more deeply in the now. For example, in the final scene, the way he articulated his spiritual torment shows how much of the man he was that he lost, and how that person was gone, just gone-- yet not unrecoverable. It's almost impossible to describe how much he added to that scene. If any other actor played that scene, then I suspect we would have just felt the typical humdrum of, "Man got a raw deal. Now he's broken."
But Rusty wasn't broken. He wasn't done. He hadn't quit. He isn't willing to give up on God. He wasn't meant to disbelieve in God. It isn't in the fabric of his being. Yet his connection to God was ripped away from him. The reason that his performance is so brilliant is that MM is simultaneously playing two characters through the whole season: the man who he was, and the man who he almost is. This dialectic only exists because MM has the range to be both at the same time, both in the same line: not by changing from a goofy face to a mean face to let us know he's a nice guy with a dark side.
Light and dark in every word, every gesture. Simply remarkable.
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I just rewatched that episode after reading your comment.
It was phenomenal. The acting is simply flawless, and not just Cranston's. Every performance is spot-on, even the baby at the end! It gets you emotionally involved and in the end that's what television is about.
It's very interesting that the nominees have to submit a specific episode to win their category. This makes it much easier to compare the different performances and see how they stack up. Do you happen to know what episode Matthew McConaughey submitted?
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^^ Woody wasn't in the same category as Paul. MM and Woody both got nominated for leading roles
