There’s one thing this year’s crop of nominees for the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards agree on: it’s good to be a nominee. Hollywood.com made the rounds at the television academy’s annual pre-Emmy party to find out just what the nominees were thinking as the big ceremony approached.
“It’s just a nice period to a lovely adventure,” Allison Janney said of her nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama for her final season of The West Wing. “It’s a way to go out on a high, and it feels great to be recognized once again for the show, because I think that it’s one of the best shows on television and I was lucky to have been a part of it.”
Jane Kaczmarek, enjoying her sixth nomination as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy for Malcolm in the Middle, agreed that being honored for her series’ swansong season was especially sweet. “It’s like graduating from high school or something. You look around and think, ‘Wow, this is really it.’ It’s been great.” She was also happy that this year’s Emmy ceremony came earlier than usual. “I was saying that this was good that it’s a summer party. The Emmys have always been after Labor Day and so you always had to hold back and you couldn’t put any butter on your corn or eat potato salad. Now I can eat potato salad because the Emmys will be over.”
Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer told Hollywood.com he had a hard time processing the idea that he’s been nominated for the first time for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy. “You kind of don’t believe it for a while and then you go, ‘Wait, does that mean me?’ Then you start to check around and you check the Internet and you go, ‘Oh, no, it’s true!’ I didn’t submit my show thinking that this was going to happen. This last year was so up and down with the drama that’s happening in Charlie’s [Sheen] life, and the last thing that we were thinking about this was this. We were like, ‘Can we just put on a show? How about that? Can we just make people laugh for a half hour?’”
Sometime the demands of the spotlight can be a little overwhelming for the nominees as the big day gets closer. “It is a little bit of an extra job to have, but it’s a good extra job to have,” said Elizabeth Perkins, up for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy for Weeds. “I mean, you can’t really complain about getting nominated and having designers making clothes for you and going to parties and being given free gifts and people asking you questions.” Perkins told Hollywood.com she had an inkling that taking on the role would mean something special for her. “I knew that it was something that I really wanted to do, and it’s almost like someone really tailor-made something for me and I couldn’t be happier. I’m having such a good time playing her. She’s so off the wall and she’s so crazy and you never know what’s she’s going to do or who she’s going to hurt next.”
Having already had one year of experience as an Emmy nominee under his belt has made it more enjoyable for Rescue Me’s Denis Leary. “I think that it was surreal last year, but this year it’s a little bit more down to earth,” said the actor, up for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama.
Leary also said he felt starring and writing in a show that came from such a personal place led him to his best—and most controversial—work. “What I was taught as a writer was to write what you know or what you see, so that’s my process,” he told Hollywood.com. “Everyone on the show is based on a smudged fictional version of actual guys that I know. So these stories come out of that and out of their personal lives and out their lives at work. So I learned that early in my career. I did a movie called The Ref with Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson and I had a lot of respect for those guys. Jerry was adamant about the best comedy, the best drama both coming out of the most real circumstances that we can get in terms of the characters and then going from there. So I think that’s just what we do and that’s why I think that some people find offense with it, but that’s life. We’re not making ‘7th Heaven‘ here.”
“I got invited to a party—that’s how I’m looking at it,” explained first-time nominee Christopher Meloni, up for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for Law & Order: SVU. “I know how to operate under the party circumstances and so it’s a nice little whirlwind where you’re running around. Everyone is in a great mood. I got all of my friends backing me. Really, they kind of sent me off to summer camp, like, ‘Make us proud and win a badge.’ So I’m out here to win an archery badge.”
Meloni also got some words of wisdom on the Emmy experience from his co-star Mariska Hargitay. “She was one of the first to call and she left a message: ‘Just enjoy it. Just really enjoy yourself.’ It’s going to be a great ride. I’m like, ‘Alright.’ Words to live by.”
“Oh, he doesn’t need any pointers,” laughed Hargitay as she sneaked up behind Meloni to surprise him. “That’s a man who doesn’t need any pointers.”
Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines, nominated as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy, was thinking all about the comfort factor on Emmy night. “I’ve doubled down [my workout] for the Emmys. The dress is not loose. I’ll tell you that. It’s not loose.” She also shared her secret plan for making it through the long evening. “To put slippers in my limo so that when you’re driving from the Emmys to the parties your feet can have a rest.”
Journeyman actor Gregory Itzin, in contention for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama for his role as President Logan in 24, said that the nomination has been the icing on the cake in his rich and rewarding career. “The word would be gratifying, but that doesn’t really do it justice.” When the word of his nod first came out, Itzin immediately jumped on the phone to congratulate his co-star, First Lady and fellow nominee Jean Smart, herself in the running for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama. “I called her real early, but she had already found out and gone back to bed, the darling thing. She said, [imitating her half-asleep response] ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Yeah, this is your TV husband.’ [mockin Smart’s exhaustion] ‘Oh, congratulations.’ It’s old hat for her. She’s been there and done that, but yes, she was one of the first people I called.”
Humble Expectations
One thing many of the nominees had in common was a shared expectation that they would not walk out of the Emmy ceremony clutching a trophy. Hines joked that she and Larry David might have a much better chance if they had a special category for the rare breed of actors who make up their lines as they go along, as is their nearly exclusive practice on Curb Your Enthusiasm. “I feel like we should be in our own category and so then we’d be bound to run away with it.”
Even though she’s hedging her bets on another win (she has two in the supporting category and two more as a lead), Janney told Hollywood.com she would indeed prepare an acceptance speech this year. “I was caught by surprise the last time that I won, and I really didn’t have a speech at all and that was not good. That’s the worst thing, because I’m not good at coming up with stuff. I was a wreck. So I swore that no matter what I thought my chances were that I was going to write a speech.”
“I don’t think that I’m going to win,” agreed Leary. “I think that Martin Sheen is going to win, and if not him then Kiefer [Sutherland] and I think that they both deserve it and they’re both friends of mine. Martin is a friend, but he’s also the father of a couple friends. It’s so incestuous this business. I figured it’d be really nice if Martin won and Charlie won so that they go home with two, and then one of them can give one to Emilio [Estevez] and then he feels good.”
Then he gave it a second thought. “Why am I worried about the Estevez/Sheen family? Really, they should take care of themselves.”
