Five key names that you have to know before the Emmys

BarcelonaOn Monday night into Tuesday we will find out which are the most outstanding series of the year with the presentation of the Emmy Awards, which will hold their 78th edition in Los Angeles. The candidates to take home awards are fictions that in most cases already have a track record, but there is also some newcomer, such as The Curse of Widow's Bay, one of the surprises of this year. But before knowing which fictions are crowned, let's review five key names to keep in mind before the awards celebration.

Matthew Rhys

One of those most likely to take home an award on Monday night is Matthew Rhys, who is vying for the award for best comedy actor for The Curse of Widow's Bay (Apple TV) and for best actor in a miniseries for The Beast Within Me (Netflix). With a theatrical background –he studied at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art–, a good part of this proudly Welsh actor's career has developed primarily in American television. Widow's Bay, which has already won eight technical Emmy awards,has allowed him to show his more comedic side, with touches of Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton, without leaving aside a certain sad demeanor that has marked some of his previous work.

With the series The Americans, where he played a Russian spy infiltrated in the United States, he established himself as a television star and began a new personal chapter, as he started a relationship with his co-star Keri Russell, with whom he has a child and who this year is also nominated for an Emmy for The Diplomat. Despite being based in New York, the bond with Wales remains very important to Rhys, who is deeply committed to the defense of his mother tongue, Welsh, and his country's culture. "I grew up in the 80s, when the survival of the language was under threat. I remember the demonstrations and protests to have a law that would protect the language. It is one of the oldest languages in Europe and you couldn't open a bank account using Welsh. It had no status. If you take away a nation's language, you can dominate it. And that is what they [the English] tried to do, eradicate a language. But they ignited the Welsh, who said: 'You will not kill this language'," Rhys explained in a recent interview with the New York Times.

Jean Smart

A veteran of cinema, theater and, above all, television, Jean Smart is a record-breaking actress. Throughout her career, she has won seven Emmys and, along with Betty White, is the only actress to have achieved awards in the three main categories: lead comedy actress, supporting actress, and guest actress. Hacks (HBO), the series for which she is nominated,is one of the great projects of her life: it has given her four Emmys –one for each season– and this Monday it could bring her the fifth for the final installment of this comedy that contrasts a veteran comedian and a Gen Z humorist, played by Hannah Einbinder. Despite competing against Lisa Kudrow, who is one of the favorite actresses of the United States Television Academy, the award for Smart seems assured; a perfect ending for the farewell of Hacks, which in its final season has played the emotion card without forgetting humor.

During the years of Hacks, Smart has experienced several difficult personal moments. When there was one week left to finish filming the first season, her husband, actor Richard Gilliland, died suddenly. The first scene she had to shoot after this loss was, precisely, a funeral. Some time later, during the recording of the third season, she began to feel unwell and after a visit to the emergency room, she underwent a triple bypass surgery. Nevertheless, Smart has kept at it and defended the art of comedy: "If you have darkness, you have to have light. Making someone laugh is a bit like sex. You get a physical reaction from someone that is so pleasurable, so life-affirming, that the endorphins go wild. I will always make jokes," she told the New York Times.

Jack Lowden

The Scottish actor Jack Lowden, co-star of Slow horses (Apple TV), will surely not win any awards on Monday, even though he is nominated for best supporting actor in a drama, but he is one of the actors of the moment. He is about to release a new season of the spy series and his name is being strongly linked to taking on one of the great icons of British cinema, James Bond. Agent 007 has had no successor since Daniel Craig said goodbye to the franchise and, according to American and British media, Lowden is one of the best-positioned actors to fill the vacancy. The list of candidates also includes Harris Dickinson, Jacob Elordi, Callum Turner, and lesser-known names like Jack Barton and Jack O'Connell. For now, Gary Oldman, his co-star in Slow horses, has already positioned himself in his favor. "It has been rumored that [Lowden] is on the list of candidates –Oldman said in an interview with Canada's The morning show–. We'll find out soon, won't we? They've made the decision, but they haven't announced it yet. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Jack".

He is not the only person in Lowden's circle who has spoken about the new Bond films. His wife, actress Saoirse Ronan, has also given her opinion, but in her case, it has been to demand that they cast her as a villain. "I want to be a Bond villain, I'm serious. I think it would be really interesting to have a young female villain, especially for girls and women. Seeing someone who can take all that pent-up anger and direct it somewhere has something dramatically interesting," she told Empire magazine.

Waiting to know if he will be the chosen one to play Bond or not, Lowden has another very well-known and beloved character in the pipeline: Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice in the version that Netflix has made of the Jane Austen classic and which will premiere in the fall.

Noah Wyle

Noah Wyle's career can be explained through two doctors: Dr. Carter, from ER, and Dr. Robby, from The Pitt(HBO Max), the series that has returned him to the forefront of television. Between the mid-90s and the early 2000s, he was one of the most well-known faces on the small screen thanks to the medical drama he was on for fifteen years, but afterwards his career faded into projects that never really took off. The HBO Max series has meant a complete professional resurgence for him, as he is both the lead and a producer. It is not very difficult to establish a common thread between the two fictions that have marked Wyle's life: it is not only that both are set in the emergency department of a large hospital, but also that the creative team of The Pittis largely the same as that of ER. The actor joined John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill, who had been producers of the 90s hit. Last year Wyle already won the award for best dramatic actor and it is very likely that he will win it again this Monday, when The Pitt is also expected to be crowned best drama. With ER he was nominated five times for best supporting actor, but he never won.

Wyle has never studied medicine, but he has a very strong personal bond with healthcare professionals. Besides having worked with many to prepare for the series and his character, his mother was a surgical nurse. Together they have participated in different initiatives to demand improvements in the United States healthcare system and more support for healthcare workers overwhelmed by working conditions and lack of resources. "When I look back, I realize my mother is tough as nails. You can't rub her shoulders too hard or she bruises. If you tease her, she gets angry. But she took a man's leg to pathology and didn't blink twice. I have a lot of respect for what my mother has done and experienced in her job," he explained in an interview with Los Angeles Times.

Sarah Pidgeon

Until relatively recently Sarah Pidgeon was unknown to the general public. But then she became Carolyn Bessette –dying her dark hair blonde– for the miniseries Love story (Disney+) and everything changed. The fiction that tells the tortuous marriage of the publicist and John John Kennedy, America's boyfriend, has made her famous and, in the process, turned her into a fashion icon, following in her character's footsteps. However, Pidgeon was not starting from scratch. Before being chosen to play Bessette, the theater had given her great professional joys. In 2024 she made her Broadway debut with Stereophonic and she was showered with nominations for theater awards, including the Tony, the most important in the industry. In the play, which follows a 70s band in the middle of recording an album, she played Diana, a vocalist and keyboardist with reminiscences of transcendental female figures in the history of pop and rock such as Stevie Nicks, of Fleetwood Mac.

In an interview with the magazine Elle, Pidgeon admitted that the series has turned her existence upside down. "My life, compared to all the previous years, has been very abnormal this year. I have been traveling to different places. I have been working a lot. I go to haute couture shows, do photo shoots and go to late-night television programs. It is so different from everything I have experienced. It has been a big change," she explained. This Monday she could win the award for best lead actress in a miniseries, although she is competing with heavyweights like Claire Danes, Carey Mulligan and Sally Field. Whatever happens, she has already won because Love story has opened the doors for her to an industry in which until now she had only played supporting roles.