Kaitlyn Dever out front in Drama Guest Actress Emmy odds for killer ‘The Last of Us' role
This year's Emmy race for Best Drama Guest Actress is shaping up to be a battle between The Last of Us and Severance.
Two guest stars from each show appear in Gold Derby's top four spots: Kaitlyn Dever and Catherine O'Hara for HBO's zombie apocalypse adaptation, and Gwendoline Christie and Merritt Wever for Apple TV+'s sci-fi workplace series. Our predicted lineup of six is rounded out by Cherry Jones for The Handmaid's Tale and Hilary Swank for Yellowjackets.
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Dever appears in three episodes of The Last of Us Season 2 as Abby, a soldier who seeks revenge against Joel (Pedro Pascal) for murdering her father. When she finally locates him, Abby and her group of followers torture and beat Joel to death with a golf club, in front of his daughter figure, Ellie (Bella Ramsey). The cycle of revenge violence continues, as Ellie takes it upon herself to kill everyone associated with Abby until the two come face to face in the finale. In 2023, Dever received the first Emmy bid of her career, for her supporting turn on Dopesick. She has also appeared in projects like Justified, Unbelievable, and Apple Cider Vinegar, the latter of which she'll be on this year's Emmy ballot for Best Movie/Limited Series Actress.
HBO
O'Hara plays Gail on The Last of Us, a therapist at the encampment who continues to see Joel, despite him being responsible for murdering Gail's husband, Eugene (Joe Pantoliano), who had been infected by a zombie bite. Like Dever, O'Hara could be a two-time Emmy nominee this year; she also has a key supporting role as a fired movie producer on The Studio. The veteran actress has two Emmy Awards on her mantel, for starring on Schitt's Creek (2020) and for writing SCTV Network (1982).
Christie's role of Lorne, an anti-social goatherd in Severance Season 2, stood out for its sheer uniqueness. Much of her scenes are shared with Adam Scott's Mark S., who stumbles upon Lorne's Mammalians Nurturable division while trying to uncover what happened to his missing wife. This would be Christie's second career Emmy nomination, after previously earning a bid for her breakout role of Brienne of Tarth on Game of Thrones (2019).
Wever also made her Severance debut in the second season, though her character is much more grounded and driven by emotion. She portrays Gretchen George, the wife of Zach Cherry's outie character, Dylan George. Their marriage has become stale over the years, but Gretchen soon rekindles her love for him by secretly meeting with his innie version, Dylan G., under the watchful eye of Miss Huang (Sarah Bock). Wever is already a two-time Emmy champion for the comedy series Nurse Jackie (2013) and the limited series Godless (2018).
Jones returned to The Handmaid's Tale for the final season as Holly Maddox, the feminist mother of June (Elisabeth Moss). Only this time, she was seen in the present-day story (as opposed to flashbacks) after June found her alive and working at a refugee camp in Alaska. In the series finale, Holly convinces her daughter to write a book about everything she's accomplished as an escaped handmaid who helped take down Gilead. Jones has three Emmys to her name for 24 (supporting, 2009), The Handmaid's Tale (guest, 2019), and Succession (guest, 2020).
Rounding out Gold Derby's top six is Swank for Yellowjackets. She plays the adult version of Jenna Burgess' Melissa, a member of the girls' soccer team who crashed in a plane and survived in the wilderness. In the present, Melissa starts a new life as Kelly after faking her death by suicide. Swank is a double Best Actress Oscar winner for Boys Don't Cry (1999) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), though this would be her first Emmy nomination.
Others in the running for a Best Drama Guest Actress Emmy nomination include Tati Gabrielle (The Last of Us), Jane Alexander (Severance), Julie Hagerty (Matlock), Sydney Cole Alexander (Severance), Angela Bassett (Doctor Odyssey), and Rebecca Tilney (The Pitt). Note that contenders like Gabrielle, who were not officially submitted by a network or studio, can still enter their own names for Emmy consideration.
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Because I realize that when I walk in a room, before I even open my mouth, there's 90 different things that are put on me or taken away from me because of how I look and how I carry myself. Javier, since doing the series are you now frequently asked about your own opinions on the Menendez case? The brothers claim their father molested them, and that is in part what led to them murdering their parents. Bardem: I don't think anybody knows. That's the point. That was the great thing about playing that character, is you have to play it in a way that it's not obvious that he did those things that he was accused of, because nobody knows, but at the same time you have to make people believe that he was capable. I did say to Ryan [Murphy] that I can't do a scene with a kid. Because in the beginning, they do drafts, and there were certain moments where I said, 'I can't. It's not needed.' The only moment that I had a hard time was when [Jose] has to face [his] young kid. It was only a moment where Jose was mean to him. That's not in my nature. Henry: I discovered, while doing my series, 'My body doesn't know this isn't real.' There's an episode where I'm shot in the leg, and I'm bleeding out and I'm on all this different morphine and drugs and all this stuff, and I'm literally lying on this ground, take after take, having to mime this. To go through the delusion of this pain ... in the middle of the takes, it was just so crazy. I would literally look at the crew and say, 'Somebody hug me! Somebody!' Stephen, that scene where you confront the boys in the parking lot with the bike, I was just like, 'Oh, my God, how many times did he have to do that?' This kid gets in your face, and I was like, 'Punch the kid!' My heart went out to you, man, not just as the character but as you being in there. Graham: Because we did it all in one take, we had that unique quality. You're using the best of two mediums. You've got that beauty and that spontaneity and that reality of the theater, and then you have the naturalism and the truth that we have with film and television. So by the time I get to that final bit, we've been through all those emotions. When I open the door and go into [Jamie's] room, everything's shaken. But it's not you. It's an out-of-body experience and just comes from somewhere else. Bardem: Listen, we don't do brain surgery, but let's give ourselves some credit. We are generous in what we do because we are putting our bodies into an experience. We are doing this for something bigger than us, and that is the story that we're telling. What have been some of the more challenging or difficult moments for you, either in your career or your recent series? Zellweger: Trying not to do what you're feeling in the moment sometimes, because it's not appropriate to what you're telling. That happens in most shows, most things that you do. I think everybody experiences it where you're bringing something from home and it doesn't belong on the set. It's impossible to leave it behind when you walk in because it's bigger than you are in that moment. Banks: I would say that the thing that I worked on the most for 'The Better Sister' was [understanding] sobriety. I'm not sober. I love a bubbly rosé. So it really did bring up how much I think about drinking and how social it is and what that ritual is for me, and how this character is thinking about it every day and deciding every day to stay sober or not. I am also a huge fan of AA and sobriety programs. I think they're incredible tools for everybody who works those programs. I was grateful for the access to all of that as I was making the series. But that's what you get to do in TV. You get to explore episode by episode. You get to play out a lot more than just three acts. Stephen, about the continuous single shot. It seems like it's an incredibly difficult and complex way to shoot a series. Why do it? Graham: It's exceptionally difficult, I'm not going to lie. It's like a swan glides across the water beautifully, but the legs are going rapidly underneath. A lot of it is done in preparation. We spend a whole week learning the script, and then the second week is just with the camera crew and the rest of the crew. It's a choreography that you work out, getting an idea of where they want the camera to go, and the opportunity to embody the space ourselves. Cohen: That reminds me of a bit of doing the undercover movies that I do because you have one take. ... I did a scene where I'm wearing a bulletproof vest. There were a lot of the people in the audience who'd gone to this rally, a lot of them had machine guns. We knew they were going to get angry, but you've got to do the scene. You've got one time to get the scene right. But you also go, 'OK, those guys have got guns. They're trying to storm the stage. I haven't quite finished the scene. When do I leave?' But you've got to get the scene. I could get shot, but that's not important. Henry: There's a certain level of sociopathy. Slate: I feel like I'm never on my mark, and it was always a very kind camera operator being like, 'Hey, Jenny, you weren't in the shot shoulder-wise.' I feel like such an idiot. Part of it is working through lifelong, longstanding feelings of 'I'm a fool and my foolishness is going to make people incredibly angry with me.' And then really still wanting to participate and having no real certainty that I'm going to be able to do anything but just make all of my fears real. Part of the thing that I love about performance is I just want to experience the version of myself that does not collapse into useless fragments when I face the thing that scares me the most. I do that, and then I feel the appetite for performance again. Do you see yourself in roles when you're watching other people's films or TV show? Graham: At the end of the day, we're all big fans of acting. That's why we do it. Because when we were young, we were inspired by people on the screen, or we were inspired by places where we could put ourselves and lose our imaginations. We have a lot of t— in this industry. But I think if we fight hard enough, we can come through. Do you know what I mean? It's people that are here for the right reasons. It's a collective. Acting is not a game of golf. It's a team. It's in front and it's behind the camera. I think it's important that we nourish that. Henry: And remember that none of us are t—. Bardem: What is a t—? I may be one of them and I don't know it. Graham: I'll explain it to you later.
