Detailed consideration of the craft of an actor’s performance in a single TV role.
Born and raised in Jacksonville, Texas, Margo Martindale was a reliable character actor on stage and in films and television series for decades before she suddenly and delightfully became a star on FX’s crime saga Justified, playing Mags Bennett, a Ma Barker-styled Kentucky crime boss who dispatches her foes with poisoned moonshine. A string of […]
Better Call Saul, Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould’s improbably just-as-good prequel to Breaking Bad, is a showcase for ace character actors, none as sneakily great as Michael McKean, who costars as the slippery hero’s straight-arrow older brother, Chuck McGill. Chuck is a feared trial lawyer at a top Albuquerque, New Mexico law firm who claims […]
Although he’s perhaps best known as one of the versatile repertory actors on The Simpsons, Hank Azaria is also a formidable live-action performer who can adjust his body to suit the needs of a role as deftly as he can his voice. Jim Brockmire, a minor-league sportscaster struggling with alcoholism and his own monstrous ego, gives […]
In its second season, Showtime’s hit drama series Billions made history by introducing TV’s first gender non-binary major character, Taylor Mason (played by Asia Kate Dillon), an intern at Axe Capital who unexpectedly becomes a favorite of macho hedge funder Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). Dillon, who uses the singular they pronoun, auditioned for the role shortly after […]
It’s tricky enough to be the lead actor on a TV drama, more so when you’re in almost every scene, and trickier still when your character narrates the show. USA Network’s Golden Globe® award winner Mr. Robot tasks its star, Rami Malek, with all these responsibilities, then adds more: It’s one of the most relentlessly […]