The second season of Ryan Murphy’s true-crime anthology series hones in on the world of fashion, murder and police department homophobia in the late 1990s. Told in an innovative backwards structure, it boasts a career-defining performance from Darren Criss (“Glee”) as serial killer Andrew Cunanan.
As of this writing 10 of the 18 Expert journalists we’ve polled from top media outlets are predicting a victory for Cruz: Eric Deggans (NPR), Joyce Eng (Gold Derby), Pete Hammond (Deadline Hollywood), Chris Harnick (E!), Matthew Jacobs (Huffington Post), Lynette Rice (Entertainment Weekly), Robert Rorke(New York Post), Anne Thompson (IndieWire), Peter Travers (Rolling Stone) and Adnan Virk (ESPN).
Cruz has never been nominated for an Emmy before, but she’s an Oscar winning movie star and Emmy voters often love those. She also plays a recognizable real-life figure, fashion designer Donatella Versace, which required the Spanish actress to speak English with an Italian accent. But it’s far from an open-and-shut case.
Two Experts say the Emmy will go to Laura Dern (“Twin Peaks: The Return“): Lynn Elber (Associated Press) and Glenn Whipp (LA Times). Dern just won this award last year for “Big Little Lies,” and voters will also be watching her this year in the telefilm “The Tale,” for which she’s the front-runner for Best Movie/Mini Actress. All that plus her recent role in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” has made her a Hollywood darling in the last 12 months.
Another two Experts are predicting Nicole Kidman (“Top of the Lake: China Girl”): Debra Birnbaum (Variety) and Ken Tucker (Yahoo). Like Dern, Kidman was an Emmy winner last year for “Big Little Lies” (Best Limited Series and Best Movie/Mini Actress), so she too is on a hot streak.
Two more Experts are betting on Angela Lansbury (“Little Women”): Tom O’Neil(Gold Derby) and Matt Roush (TV Guide Magazine). Lansbury is long, long, long overdue with no wins out of a whopping 18 past nominations. In a divided field, voters might decide it’s a good time to finally reward the 92-year-old acting legend.
Debbie Day (Rotten Tomatoes) is going out on a limb for Cruz’s “Assassination” co-star Judith Light. She’s a two-time Daytime Emmy winner for her role on “One Life to Live” (1980-1981) but she has never won in primetime despite three past nominations.
And our last Expert, Ben Travers (IndieWire) thinks Merritt Wever (“Godless”) will surprise. It wouldn’t be the first time. Wever was an upset Emmy winner in 2013 for Best Comedy Supporting Actress for “Nurse Jackie.”
From Big Little Lies to Fargo to American Crime Story the Outstanding Limited Series category has consistently celebrated some of the best shows on TV at the Emmys. Five years ago, largely inspired by the work of Ryan Murphy, the Emmys even separated limited series and tv movies into their own program awards. Now in a year with 44 submissions, voters have more than enough anthologies and miniseries to choose from but surprisingly nothing is really sticking with voters. Critics haven’t rallied behind any specific show, audiences and fans aren’t throwing support towards anything specific, and no show really has the star power of a Jessica Lange or Nicole Kidman.
Usually, critics groups and ratings give at least some sense of consensus but this year they’ve shown just how wide-open the limited series race is shaping up to be. A quick ranking of Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes scores (as well as their user ratings) gave completely different lists with American Vandal being the only show to make an appearance on all four lists. Shows like Alias Grace and The Sinner are much more popular on Rotten Tomatoes while Howard’s End is more popular at Metacritic. Patrick Melrose was popular with critics but loathed by users. This only proves that at this point any limited series has a chance to walk away with the Emmy.
The Likely Contenders
The Outstanding Limited Series category wouldn’t be complete without some sort of Ryan Murphy project and 2018 is no exception. The highly anticipated second installment of American Crime Story premiered with The Assassination of Gianni Versace. The premiere was well-received by fans and critics but the overall reaction came across as muted compared to the phenomenon that was the first season. It will be interesting to see if Gianni Versace carries as much weight with voters as OJ Simpson did especially with plenty of award-worthy performances from Darren Criss, Edgar Ramirez, Penelope Cruz, and Judith Light.
If this were 2017, I’d say “Big Little Lies,” no contest. This year, I’ve enjoyed the ’90s tunes of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” and the era-transporting hybrid mixes on “Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G.”, which had to tell the story without Pac’s and Biggie’s music.
Edgar Ramirez, The Assassination of Gianni Versace
In some ways, much like in the first season of Crime Story, the title character ended up playing second fiddle to far more brilliant suns. But its hard to imagine the series working as well as it did without Ramirez to anchor it. As he played an iconic fashion designer, struggling with his relationship, deal with being HIV positive, trying to find a way for his sister to find her muse, and slowly climb himself back to life all the while knowing that he would face a horrible demise, Ramirez managed to hit all the right notes as this man who was born too early and died too soon. It’s hard to imagine the rest of the leads won’t get nominated, but Ramirez earned it.
It’s been awhile. But with the Emmy Nominations being announced next week (July 12th) myself, Michael Schwartz and the returning Ryan C. Showers are back with our final Emmy Nomination Predictions for Next Best Series Episode 4. | 5 July 2018
Darren Criss barely looks like he’s aged a day since “Glee,” but the “Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” star is 31 years old — definitely not old, but not a whippersnapper either. But if he takes home the Emmy for Best Limited Series/TV Movie Actor, he’d be the second youngest to prevail in the category.
Criss wouldn’t come close to dethroning the youngest winner, Anthony Murphy, who was 17 when he won for “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” in 1973. It was Murphy’s first and only acting role; he’s now a painter. No one has won the category in their 20s. Eleven people have won in their 30s, including reigning champ Riz Ahmed(“The Night Of”), who was 34. Criss would bump down Peter Strauss (“The Jericho Mile”) and Powers Boothe (“Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones”), who were both 32 when they won in 1979 and 1980, respectively.
Not unlike the Oscars, the Emmys favor older actors, and one-off programs like miniseries and TV movies tend to attract or are written for veterans or established stars. Most limited series/TV movie actor champs are middle-aged or older.
Criss has been sitting pretty atop our predictions for his turn as Andrew Cunanan, who was 27 when he went on his cross-country murder spree, culminating with the killing of Gianni Versace. It’s a haunting, unnerving performance that’s a complete 180 from Blaine Anderson, but could age bias — not to mention the “Slap the Stud” syndrome — hurt him? In 2014, his fellow Ryan Murphy player Matt Bomer, then 36, was favored to win for his supporting turn in “The Normal Heart,” but was upset by Martin Freeman, then 42, for “Sherlock: His Last Vow.”
That same year, Freeman’s co-star Benedict Cumberbatch, then 38, won in lead. Cumberbatch is back in the hunt this year for “Patrick Melrose” and has risen to fourth in our predictions, with multiple Experts, Editors and Top 24 Users picking his performance as the title character, a suicidal drug addict, to triumph.
But maybe Ahmed’s victory last year — over the likes of Cumberbatch, Robert De Niro, Geoffrey Rush, Ewan McGregor and John Turturro — will usher in a new era of younger actors claiming Emmy gold. They’re no less deserving than older and/or bold-named stars. In fact, if all goes as predicted, Criss wouldn’t even be the youngest nominee in the category: Michael B. Jordan (“Fahrenheit 451”), currently in fifth place, is four days younger than him.
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