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From the leading lady of ‘The Americans’ to the DP on ‘The Man in the High Castle’ to a cross-dressing supporting player on ‘Baskets,’ THR’s TV critic picks the people he most ardently wants to see grab the gold.

The 2016 Primetime Emmy Awards will be handed out on September 10 and 11 (the “creative arts” ceremony, perplexingly spread out over two parts) and September 18 (the actual ABC telecast hosted by Jimmy Kimmel), and I’ll be taking a rooting interest in every category because, like most TV viewers, I have preferences and I take them personally.

But here are 10 nominees I’ll be rooting for especially enthusiastically on the various Emmy nights. I intentionally left out winners that I expect are no-brainers. I don’t need to stress out rooting for Sarah Paulson and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, because they’ll be just fine. Some of these are longshots, some are probably favorites, but if the 2016 Emmys want me looking back with fond memories, at least a few of them had better win.

Keri Russell, ‘The Americans’
I could have filled half of the slots on this list with categories in which I’ll be rooting for The Americans, but if The Americans won in all the categories it deserves to, it critics would no longer be able to feel superior in our love of The Americans and what would be the point in that? It’s a tribute to how great Keri Russell is on The Americans — Elizabeth’s kitchen staredown with Paige from this season is worth all available awards — that I’ll be rooting for the Felicity veteran in a category that’s pretty remarkable. Cookie Lyon remains one of TV’s most entertaining characters. Tatiana Maslany is a multi-faceted marvel. Viola Davis nails everything her erratic show lets her do. But this year, which saw Elizabeth do worse and more conflicted and conflicting things than ever before, should be Russell’s year.

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com

In 1999, after a single season as the bountifully curled college student at the helm of WB’s “Felicity,” Keri Russell won a Golden Globe. Seventeen years and countless hairstyles later, Ms. Russell has finally earned recognition for the strongest role of her career — an Emmy Award nomination for playing Elizabeth Jennings, the K.G.B. agent and master of disguise, on FX’s “The Americans.” The 68th Emmy Awards will be held on Sept. 18.

It was the first Emmy nomination for Ms. Russell, who, despite high marks in that critically acclaimed show, had been overlooked its three previous seasons. The icing on the cake: Matthew Rhys, her onscreen husband (Philip Jennings) and offscreen partner, earned his first nomination as well.

“To be honest, we weren’t paying attention to it at all, because for so many years we haven’t been acknowledged,” she said. “What a fun surprise. Because in a strange way I feel like we’re the bad kids who got invited to the party — like somehow this year we slipped through the cracks.”

In a recent phone conversation from the couple’s country home in Woodstock, N.Y., Ms. Russell talked about working under the radar; life with their newborn, Sam; and the real reason they drink so much wine. These are edited excerpts from that conversation. Continue reading Keri Russell on Her First Emmy Nomination, for ‘The Americans’

When The Americans stars Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell arrived for Deadline’s shoot at a quaint upstate NY inn near where they were on holiday, they brought the latest member of their entourage. That would be Sam, a two-month-old who seems right out of central casting for cutest baby ever. In a fourth season of the Reagan era Cold War FX spy drama series that featured a dizzying amount of surprises on screen, the pending stork visit for Rhys and Russell’s first child together was one of two plot twists that surprised showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, who had to accelerate shooting to get the season in before Russell was due, hiding a pregnancy that was not worked into the plot line.

The other surprise was that, after three seasons as a critical darling and a guilty pleasure, The Americans finally got love from the Television Academy, and reached that critical consensus that occasionally catapults an established show like Friday Night Lights. The Americans is up for five major Emmy Awards including Outstanding Drama Series, one each for Rhys and Russell as lead actors, one for Outstanding Writing for Weisberg and Fields, and another for Margo Martindale, who last year won the show’s only Emmy in the Guest Actress category. Continue reading Keri Russell & Matthew Rhys On ‘The Americans’ Emmy-Nominated 4th Season

“The Americans” showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields took a well-deserved victory lap at the Television Critics Association press tour on Tuesday, on the heels of the FX drama nabbing breakthrough Emmy noms for drama series and acting bids for stars Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell.

Weisberg and Fields addressed the process of mapping out the show’s final two seasons during the Q&A at the Beverly Hilton. The spoiler-conscious showrunners didn’t give up much in terms of plot points for season five and six. But a few things could be deduced from the pair’s cautious comments.

Here are 10 things we learned from “The Americans” panel:

– Martha lives! Alison Wright’s Martha Hanson character was shipped off to the Soviet Union at the end of last season after she learned the truth of her sham marriage to Rhys’ Clark alter ego. Weisberg and Fields wouldn’t confirm whether she will be seen again in the upcoming seasons but she’s definitely still kicking in the Motherland. “Martha’s not dead. She made it there,” Fields said.
– Season five will consist of 13 episodes. The final season will be 10 episodes, to keep the storytelling taut, Weisberg said.
– During the first season, Weisberg and Fields were very worried about whether the show could pull off extended scenes in the Soviet embassy with characters speaking entirely in Russian. “It’s crazy when we think back to the first season how risky it seemed to do those scenes in Russian,” Fields said.
– Margo Martindale and Frank Langella will be back next season in their roles as Soviet spy handlers for Rhys and Russell’s Philip and Elizabeth Jennings. Martindale’s Claudia will have a “bigger story” next year, Weisberg said.
– The seed planted at the end of season four that Philip’s adult son Mischa from a previous relationship is about to crash the Jennings’ world in the U.S. was a “late realization” for the writing team. “When we last saw (Mischa) it was ambiguous if that character even really existed,” Weisberg said.
– Weisberg and Fields’ vision for how the series would end didn’t take shape until the break between season one and season two. “We had to figure out what the show was first,” Fields said. In the beginning, the primary goal was clear: “Don’t get canceled,” Weisberg said.
– As tense as things were between Philip and Elizabeth and their teenage daughter Paige (played by Holly Taylor) at the end of season four, just wait. “The stuff that’s been percolating and brewing with the Paige recruitment and them struggling in this incredible triangle is really going to finally come to a boil,” Weisberg said.
– When oh when will Noah Emmerich’s rock-ribbed FBI guy Stan Beeman finally realize that the Ruskie spies he seeks are right across the street? “The suspicions that have been percolating between the Jennings and their across-the-street neighbor are going to get more suspicious but in surprising ways,” Fields said.
– Of all the wigs and disguises the producers have thrust upon Russell and Rhys, the only one that Russell has rejected is a wig that is way too close to her “Felicity” persona from the WB Network days. Everybody else in the “Americans” company has put it on for a picture. But not Russell, Fields said.
– Weisberg was particularly nervous about whether the nine-month time jump that the show took in season four would work. “Joe’s first words after seeing the director’s cut was ‘Oh my god, it worked,’ ” Fields said. Weisberg gave a lot of credit to a discreet hairstyling choice. “It was such a subtle, simple thing — we tied Paige’s hair back into a ponytail and that gave her a sterner look. It was the littlest thing but it did so much to make it work,” he said.

Source: http://variety.com/

What do you like best about your character?
“The show does a really good job of reversing the typical roles of males and females, and I think it’s a very complicated, in-depth look at a messy, real relationship. What appealed to me in the beginning is that the female was a little less invested in the relationship. That’s such an interesting take because it’s always the woman who is pining after this guy who is cheating on her. And it wasn’t that. She’s like, ‘No, this is our job, and I’m in love with someone else, and that’s what I get from that.’ And [Matthew Rhys’ character, Philip] was the one who was really sweet and sensitive. But then where we ended the fourth season — and I love that it took four seasons for her to finally have emotions — there was so much jealousy for that character and so much pain in him having true feelings, or whatever it was that he had, for the Martha character. That is such a great arc for a character to get to play that.”

Most helpful thing for getting into character
“One of the most enjoyable parts is the trying on of the wigs and 1980s glasses that we do in the hair and makeup trailers. Almost all of them are really bad, and we just sit and laugh with each other and tell each other how bad we look.”

Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com