So, a fun thing happens when you slaughter a good chunk of the cast before the final season of Game of Thrones– it really clears the decks when it comes time for fandom awards season. In all of our acting categories, the nominees are few and unified enough that we can go ahead and confirm the final nominations for all the performance categories. That is except for one, the category that is an absolute bloodbath every year due to an overabundance of talent. And that’s the one we’ll be voting on today- Best Supporting Actor!
But before the voting, Watchers on the Wall is happy to confirm the finalists for five categories. The nominees for Best Leading Actor are:
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister
Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister
Kit Harington as Jon Snow
Isaac Hempstead Wright as Bran Stark
The nominees for Best Leading Actress are:
Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen
Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister
Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark
Maisie Williams as Arya Stark
The nominees for Best Supporting Actress are:
Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth
Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei
Bella Ramsey as Lyanna Mormont
Hannah Murray as Gilly
Our Guest Performer categories are also ready! For Best Guest Actress, our nominees are:
Laura Elphinstone as Nora (In “The Bells”)
Bea Glancy as Teela (In “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” and “The Long Night”)
Carice van Houten as Melisandre (In “The Long Night”)
Gemma Whelan as Yara Greyjoy (In “Winterfell”and “The Iron Throne”)
For Best Guest Actor, the nominees are:
Lino Facioli as Robin Arryn (In “The Iron Throne”)
Vladimir Furdik as the Night King (In “The Long Night”)
Harry Grasby as Ned Umber (In “Winterfell”)
Tobias Menzies as Edmure Tully (In “The Iron Throne”)
Marc Rissman as Harry Strickland (In “Winterfell” and “The Bells”)
Voting on the above categories will take place with the final round, after we’ve completed the prelim round!
Now, onto Best Supporting Actor… please choose your five favorites from the preliminary poll. The preliminary round rules: Select up to FIVE nominees from the poll. You can choose fewer if you like, but you can’t choose more than 5. (Visit the initial WotW Awards post for a complete explanation of the rules and process.)
At the end of one week (Thursday 08/29/19 at 10PM Eastern Time), whichever five actors have the most votes will continue on to the finals. The results of the poll will be revealed when it’s time to choose the winner of Best Supporting Actor in a few weeks.
Alfie Allen
Jacob Anderson
Richard Dormer
Kristofer Hivju
Rory McCann
They were all brilliant.
Went with Alfie, Pilou, Iain, Dormer and Rory.
Alfie Allen – duh
Rory McCann – thoroughly enjoyed his character arc, his scenes with Arya, and the scene just before Cleganebowl where he convinces Arya to abandon her list
Kristofer Hifju – such a good comedian, brilliant delivery of lines and was basically the only levity to this season.
Conleth Hill – even though the script didn’t give me nearly enough to buy that Varys would switch sides from Dany to Jon that quickly, Conleth Hill gave everything he had to this role. The scene in the Dragonstone throne room between him and Tyrion is one of my favs of the season.
John Bradley – His scene with Emilia in the premiere episode was enough for me to choose him – so good.
SANDOR !!!
🐓🐓
Pardon me. I mean: Rory McCann.
That’s difficult! Apart from Euron I loved them all. Some had this season little more material to shine, but they all gave their best with what they had.
favor please: place the character name next to the actor; I don’t always remember who played what
Alfie – really my vote for best supporting actor in the entire series!
Rory-Arya’s partner in crime and much else
Liam Cunningham Love how he plays Davos, how pragmatic and sensible yet does not take himself too seriously. Always enjoy watching him interact with other actors
Richard Domer like liam, he’s pragmatic and sensible and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Plus, he is a religious man but not a fanatic, who allows others to just be who they are
Daniel Portman he really is a supporting actor to so many – and his signing Jenny Oldstones was beyond excellent
I had six candidates who truly deserved my vote. I decided to leave out Alfie, since he seems to be getting many votes anyway. I went with Conleth, Iain, Rory, Liam and John.
Conleth Hill and Rory McCann. Sandor was one of my six favorite characters and Rory portrayed him amazingly in every season. Conleth took a part that had the potential to be utterly dull and made it a pleasure to watch.
I went for Alfie, Theon ended up being my absolute favourite male character and he is been SOOO underrated by the Emmys.
I would honestly love if he won the Emmy
Ross,
Same as you, only I chose Ian over Conleth, but more that he had amazing scenes to act this year. I had hard time too choose, but I liked all scenes with Jorah how Ian acted.
Lino Facioli as Robin Arryn (In “The Iron Throne”)
Did he even have any lines? I honestly don’t remember. Maybe a couple words?
Harry Grasby as Ned Umber (In “Winterfell”)
He might get my vote, same as the little girl Bea G. The kids were cute and acted well.
I’m surprised Isaac made the cut to be honest. Not his fault but he didn’t have to show much range at all.
Alfie, Kristofer, Rory, Pilou, Ian
I didn’t think I would have picked Pilou (how do you pronounce that anyways?) because I didn’t care for the character at all but I do feel he played Euron with a swagger and devil may care vibe as well as he could as written.
That one made me feel like a judge in one of my dog shows, walking up and down this line of fine Champion specimens and realizing that I almost might as well put on a blindfold and spin around a few times. xD Made my first cut based on just their parts in S8, since the fact that I’d like to honor several of them particularly for their overall performances would overcomplicate it for me. I pulled out Jacob, Daniel, Rory, Anton, Kristofer, Iain, Richard, Joe, & Ben. Wound up awarding Richard, Iain, Joe, Anton, & Kristofer (was between him & Jacob), because I felt like boosting some who’re worthy but might not get as many. Tough stuff there.
-Liam played a perfect Davos (thanks be to Carice for recommending him!) He very nearly made the initial cut, but I just didn’t think the last season was the strongest showing for him.
-Pilou almost made it too; he did pretty nice work with what he had.
-Daniel gets Best Musical Performance.
-Ben consistently made Dolorous Ed a hilariously relatable guy every time he appeared or got to speak. Many kudos to him. I noticed he was missing from the “Best Death” nominations. His certainly wasn’t the best death, but even that “Female wight gently lowered to the floor by Arya” made it in. xD Felt kinda…Ed-ish, somehow.
-Alfie of course was great, but I figured he’d get most of the votes here (and also stands a fair shot at winning in a month.)
-John also handled his material well even if I didn’t like Sam’s final-season role too much. Same with Conleth, who was one of my ABSOLUTE favorites all along and whom I constantly wished would be paid more attention.
So tough that I just went with my gut on the first read through. If I had started parsing scenes and lines, I could’ve been indecisive all day!
ygritte,
Yeah this category baffled me, Robyn did nothing, the rest had a few lines. Marc and Tobias were ok; The NK would be the ironic choise, and yeah the little boy would probabl get my vote for the excitement he had trying to get a good spot to see the quen
shelle,
Unless you have Brans talents, you never know, so vote who is best!
Lino was brilliant. As was Marc portraying Harry Strickland.
ash,
As far as Guest Actors go, there was very little to choose from, so I can see why he was nominated.
What’d I miss??? Lino didn’t do anything in S8e6 except sit there. He didn’t say anything. How was he brilliant? If I nodded off and didn’t see some stellar scene-stealing performance, let me know.
Of course, if you’re thinking in terms of a “legacy” nomination based on his earlier seasons’ work playing a Moon Door-obsessed, breast milk suckling milquetoast little boy in the Vale, then yes, I’d agree.
He evoked just the right amount of pity. I always felt bad for the poor kid, being preyed upon by the two-faced psychopath who’d murdered both his parents. I really wished that Robyn Arryn was the one who executed LF.
”Make the bad man fly!”🕳
ygritte,
”Did he even have any lines? I honestly don’t remember. Maybe a couple words?”
——
I just saw you beat me to it. And no, I don’t think Lino F. had any lines. He did look good though, all grown up and handsome.
Sorry, I’m going to HAVE to go with Furdik when that category comes. While he had zero spoken words like Lino compared to just a few for the others, he was at least ‘present’ as a main part of the story (more than a cameo) and had to do some physical acting, as well as emote a bit through all the makeup and prosthetics. I’ve always said there’s a lot more to a performance than simply delivering dialog.
I’m pretty sure the water bottle that was accidentally left at the dragonpit scene had more to do than Lino this season, so that’s a hard no for him.
Alfie Allen
Richard Dormer
Iain Glen
Kristofer Hivju
Rory McCann
I’m having a hard time choosing one that stood out for this category. The vast majority of them had very little to do, so the list above is what I’m going with. I also wanted to add Conleth Hill to the list, but I was disappointed in how his character was handled, so I ultimately left him off.
Maybe I do…;)
No seriously, I suspect myself of clairvoyance at times; it’s freaky… •_•
To prepare for all the other categories…hmm. Between Kit & Nikolaj for Lead Actor. Actress? The only one I can knock out is Sophie…maybe I’ll go with Emilia because VIVA DAENERYS and although I hated what happened to her character in the end, she nailed the difficult task of carrying it out onscreen as well as she could’ve. Maisie had more than Lena to work with, and while both have always been very good…Idk, maybe Emilia to celebrate Dany. Since there was lots I disliked about the handling of most of these ‘leading’ characters throughout the season…Jon gave me the fewest problems, in spite of all his “I don’t want it”/“She’s my queen”-ness.
Supporting’s gotta be Gwen. Nice set of nominees though.
I had to look up who Nora and Teela were! Tough to find enough girls, ha. Well, CvH has that one. (And the official one, if the TV academy knows what’s good for it…*stands behind her pounding fist into hand threateningly even though it oughtn’t to be a bit necessary*)
Vlad might be Guest Actor. All his bts stuff displays what he put into that big-time villain role, muteness notwithstanding. Lino had a sweet glow-up but little acting this season, and while I felt badly for Edmure he too had a relatively small part…Harry would probably be second-place. Poor kid. ;p As for Marc, he’s a nice-looking man, but it wasn’t even possible to be “brilliant” in the basically irrelevant (and irrelephant) role of Strickland. O.o Who doesn’t even sound as if he belongs in Westeros, so maybe that was his problem–he crossed over from our world and was out of place…xD (Plus, when you go calling everything and everyone “brilliant” like that, you kinda end up calling nothing and nobody brilliant…)
I’m very happy with the nominees for all of the other categories, although I’m a bit sad that the winnowing of the cast has precluded them from getting their own preliminary rounds. As for the nominees in this category … I seriously considered voting for all of them, as they all made wonderful contributions to the final season in their own way. But ultimately, I went with …
Alfie Allen – I suspect that he’s ultimately going to win this, because he’s absolutely beloved here (and rightly so). I even considered giving my vote to someone else because I know he’s got more than enough support to make the final round. But ultimately, I couldn’t not vote for him, especially in the year that the Emmys finally nominated him as well. When you’re the best, you’re the best for a reason, and it must be acknowledged.
Jacob Anderson – I didn’t go into Season 8 expecting that Grey Worm would become such an important player (like many here, I thought that he would be the one to die while Missandei would live). But I was certainly happy to be wrong on that front. Jacob has been a stalwart member of the cast since Season 3, always doing a great job with this emotionally reserved soldier – and often in Valyrian to boot. But I thought he delivered his finest work this season as he allowed himself to dream of a life of his own with Missandei, bravely leading the defense of Winterfell on behalf of citizens who didn’t trust him, losing the love of his life and then willingly descending into darkness as Daenerys Targaryen’s last true believer. From the horror on his face while watching Missandei’s execution to the fury unleashed when he cast his spear and became, as the scripts describe him, “an angel of death”, Jacob capitalized on Grey Worm’s tragedy to show us just how deeply the emotions had always been running beneath that calm surface, waiting to be unleashed.
Richard Dormer – I haven’t been shy about my unabashed love for Beric Dondarrion and for Richard’s portrayal of him ever since he returned in Season 6, so obviously I’m not going to miss an opportunity to laud him one more time. All I’ll say is that I knew for an absolute fact that Beric would die this season, and all I hoped was that it would be worthy of the character and the actor. What we got – Beric giving up his last life to save Arya so that she could save the world – turned out to be everything I could have wanted and more.
Kristofer Hivju – His comedic contributions to Tormund have been rightly lauded, but it’s the emotional bond that Tormund has managed to form with Jon that made Kristofer’s work in this final season so memorable. The conversation with Jon where he tells him that he’s got “the Real North” in him absolutely had to work to set up Jon’s endgame and that magnificent final sequence, and oh my God did it ever. The bond between those two characters and actors is so well-established that a single look between them can convey everything you need to understand about how these two former enemies became fierce allies and dear friends, to the point where the fiercely independent Tormund would willingly follow Jon as he once followed Mance beyond the Wall … and that well-earned loyalty would be strong enough to serve as a deeply satisfying final shot of my favorite TV series ever. A horn of giant’s milk to Kristofer, who made this character uniquely and indelibly his own.
Rory McCann – Everyone knows how great Rory is, so I’ll just reiterate that my absolute favorite arc in the final season – and possibly the series – belonged to Arya Stark, and Sandor Clegane was absolutely instrumental to that. The scene in “The Bells” where he finally convinces her to give up vengeance and choose life is outstanding, paying off the well-established rapport between Maisie and Rory beautifully. And while, after a decade of overwrought “Get Hype!” memes, I thought I didn’t care about Clegane Bowl, ultimately Rory and the writers MADE me care, and care deeply, setting up a titanic and breathtaking clash that served as a fitting end to this great character. Rory gave it his all in that fight, and throughout the series. A plate of chicken and a horn of ale for one of Game of Thrones’ biggest and most unconventional heroes.
Alfie Allen, Rory Mccann, Jacob Anderson, Iain Glenn and Liam Cunningham
Yeah, I think Emilia and Gwen are quite certain. As for Leading Actor, I don’t know why the fanbase underestimates Peter so much. Don’t get me wrong, perhaps Game of Thrones fans don’t want to consider him because they think he is already praised enough for the role, but it’s not his decision you know. If he is good, it isn’t his fault if he has won more than anyone else and I can agree there were seasons where other male actors were the focus, but he totally deserves to win this year in my opinion. Does anyone remember when he lost to Rory for the fourth season? Well…something is not right I believe. And Rory was great but the trial…
-Alfie Allen
-Jacob Anderson
-Iain Glen
-Conleth Hill
-Rory McCann
Jucor,
”…Does anyone remember when he lost to Rory for the fourth season? Well…Rory was great.”
____
There. Fixed it for you.
🐓🐓
Ten Bears,
How dare you you impugn GoT’s greatest glowup!
Lino said “aye”.
Sue, I’m no longer seeing the symbols for bolding or italicising. Is it my browser or is there actually a change?
===================================================================
-Alfie Allen
-Anton Lesser
-Richard Dormer
-Conleth Hill
-Rory McCann
Over 8 seasons Alfie has probably the most acting challenges and swings-and-roundabouts of any character. He was never less than good,. Anton Lesser goes relatively unsung, but in Seasons 5-8 he made Cersei effective, believable, and almost sympathetic. Now THAT is acting. Beric is the epitome of unassuming religion, quiet strength, stoicism, acceptance, world-weariness, and the willingness to die for the cause he believed in, repeatedly. And that voice! Conleth brought sympathy to a sphinx and is Mr. Wit, opposite of Varys in real life. Last but not least: SAndor was half of what is almost universally thought of as the best duo in the show. How could such a gruff, brutal man be so knightly and caring underneath? He is one of the very few characters who had deep integrity. And my headcanon is that he was somehow represented by the White Horse who Arya rode to safety (thanks Tron79).
I assume you’re being facetious, because I extolled Lino’s/Robin’s glow up when I wrote:
“He did look good though, all grown up and handsome.”
While we’re on the subject of Robin’s transformation, I have to say it looks like Uncle Petyr was right after all:
Lord Royce: “Robin Arryn is a sickly little boy.”
Littlefinger: “And sickly little boys sometimes become powerful men.”
(From S4e8)
Stark Raven’ Rad,
”… Last but not least: Sandor was half of what is almost universally thought of as the best duo in the show. How could such a gruff, brutal man be so knightly and caring underneath? He is one of the very few characters who had deep integrity. And my headcanon is that he was somehow represented by the White Horse who Arya rode to safety (thanks Tron79).”
___
Beautifully stated!
And in my head canon, a Red Priestess found Sandor’s body in the rubble and resuscitated him: “The Lord of Light isn’t done with you yet, Sandor Clegane.”
“Aye. I’m a big f*cker and I’m hard to kill.”
Alfie Allen
Jacob Anderson
John Bradley
Anton Lesser
Rory McCann
Honorable mention to Iain Glen, who has always been wonderful but outside of a few scenes didn’t get much to do this season, and to Jerome Flynn, who I thought really sold Bronn’s sudden heel turn. It was tough but I ended up going with Anton Lesser over either of them; he’s always been doing wonderfully quiet, creepy work as Qyburn, but he became straight up terrifying during his Mouth of Sauron scene with Tyrion.
Alfie Allen, Iain Glenn, Rory McCann, Jacob Anderson, John Bradley.
Those are who I voted for, because we had to choose only 5, but honestly it was tough. There are way too many brilliant actors on this show.
Stark Raven’ Rad,
I am having the same problem
Ten Bears,
Well, this just confirms what I said. It’s like hating that schoolmate who is good just because the others are not recognised. As if it was something that depends on him.
Jucor,
I do not quite understand what you mean. (And you know I was just playing around with my Hound-centric reply, right? Nothing against Peter Dinklage – who surely has received his fair share of accolades, e.g., multiple Emmys.)
Stark Raven’ Rad,
”…I’m no longer seeing the symbols for bolding or italicising. Is it my browser or is there actually a change?”
————
Although you probably know this already, you can “manually” italicize and bold by enclosing text in a coding command with a “less than” sign and “greater than” sign to start and the same command with a forward slash*, similar to spoiler coding with brackets ([ ] and [/ ]. That’s the way I’ve been doing it.
For italicizing, the coding command is “em”, enclosed by to start and the same command with a forward slash at the end. *
For bolding, the coding command is “strong”, enclosed by to start and the same command with a forward slash at the end.*
* I noticed when I previewed this comment that if I tried to type the concluding command with the forward slash, it doesn’t show up in the comment. So I hope you know what I mean.
Using emojis for the sake of illustration so the commands don’t disappear from the as-posted comment…
To italicize:
◀️em▶️text◀️/em▶️
To bold:
◀️strong▶️text◀️/strong▶️
Ten Bears,
I’m sorry if I misunderstood you. I just think it is a spread feeling in the GoT fanbase to underline the work of other actors like Alfie, Nikolaj, Kit, Charles and Jack over him. I don’t know where it starts from and it’s also something that pops up in GoldDerby forums about this Emmy race if you ever had the chance to look. I find it interesting that many times he has more fans that do not belong to the fandom that usually prefers other actors that are felt more underrated. You could rightfully argue that seasons 6 and 7 were not great for him, but season 8 was a strong season for Tyrion in my opinion.
Season 8 was Dink’s second best season after Season 4.
Jucor,
No, my apologies. I misunderstood you.
(I had a much longer reply and explanation that went to That Page Not Found Oblivion. Maybe I’ll try posting it again later.)
Really? Well then, let’s agree to disagree. Because I thought S2 was Dinklage’s/Tyrion’s best.
Now that the show has ended, I’ve been compiling my own in-progress lists of each character’s best scenes. So far, here are my top Tyrion scenes, all of which took place in the early seasons, especially S2:
#1 Converting pompous Lancel into pliant double agent (S2e5?)
#2 Ferreting out Pycelle as Cersei’s spy, and then confronting him (S2, I think)
#3 “Confessing” at his trial in the Vale
#4 Whistling as he strolled into the small council meeting with his acting Hand of the King scroll, infuriating Cersei.
#5 Using his wit to convince Hill Tribes not to kill him and Bronn
#6 Bashing and exiling Janos Slynt (”I’m not questioning your honor. I’m denying its existence.”🤣)
#7 Saving Jon Snow from getting beaten up by NW brothers
#8 Advising Jon to wear “bastard” like armor.
#9 Deploying the wildfire ghost ship and then bravely leading the city’s defense at the Battle of the Blackwater after Joffrey ran to his mommy.
#10 Trying to plan the city’s defense with Bronn and Varys
#11 Understanding Bronn’s refusal to be his champion against the Mountain (S4e7) + Oberyn’s “I will be your champion” speech in same episode
Jack Bauer 24,
#1 Tyrion and Lancel S2e4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFdj7wPf2XI
at 1:00 – Tyrion looks up with a smile, knowing he’s snared Lancel
Greg,
ut he became straight up terrifying during his Mouth of Sauron scene with Tyrion.
I can’t recall this scene – help me out pls (I agree tho he was spot on in this part)
Ten Bears,
Although you probably know this already, you can “manually” italicize and bold by enclosing text in a coding command with a “less than” sign and “greater than” sign to start and the same command with a forward slash*, similar to spoiler coding with brackets ([ ] and [/ ]. That’s the way I’ve been doing it.
yeah I know; gotten spoiled and lazy!
#6 Bashing and exiling Janos Slynt (”I’m not questioning your honor. I’m denying its existence.”🤣
Oh gawd he made me laugh so much! Then not so much in the last two (maybe three) seasons. Missed that alot, but maybe everything was just getting too serious for him.
nvm
never mind just found it. Poor Tyrion he tried so hard. Just couldnt gt through.
Ten Bears,
I think season 8 is his third best after 4 and 2. My top 5 moments of Tyrion are in order: his trial and tirade in season 4, “let’s go kill them” speech at Blackwater (2), killing Shae and Tywin (4), his goodbye to Jaime (8) and his scene with Viserion and Rhaegal (6).
I tried to focus on Season8, and whether there was at least one particular scene that stood out for me, but that’s still a tough one! So, the first three by alphabetical order:
* Alfie Allen. For the scene he comes back to Winterfell, talks to Sansa while snobing Dany
* Rory McCann. I would have chosen him even he had only this line: “I fought for you”.
* Daniel Portman. So discrete and yet he expresses so much without words, in part. in the last seasons his care and support for Brienne. And the song…
Now, only two left, my gods!
* Liam Cunningham, for his scene with the burnt girl (I love Liam/Davos, so I may not be quite objective here…)
* John Bradley, for his scene with Dany in the library.
Could have voted at least for 12 , and that would still have been a hard choice (aargh, I had to eliminate Jacob, Ben, Joe, Richard, Iain, Conleth, Kristopher, …!).
About Tyrion/Peter: He’s absolutely great, among a great cast. I wonder whether the “injustice feeling” someone mentioned comes from the fact that when it comes to Emmys, only the American guy ends up winning one. As if the Academy was less comfortable with non-American ways of acting ?
Jared,
All of this!
My votes, in no particular order:
Rory McCann/Sandor
Kristofer Hivju/Tormund
Liam Cunningham/Davos
John Bradley/Sam
Conleth Hill
But seriously, I’d vote for everyone if I could.
Jared,
Damn Jared! You’re good at this! Love your summaries.
Now do Lead Actresses…
[Please]
I admit I am probably biased toward other actors over Dinkles because a) as with many people, I wasn’t thrilled with Tyrion in that last season, so I might’ve overlooked a little, and b) Yeah, I couldn’t help thinking “It’s somebody else’s turn!” Even though he was consistently very good with the material he had. And he gets points for being a fellow Jersey native. ^o^ Though yeah, I’d like to see some Europeans finally awarded…
shelle,
I was happy with his season because I didn’t expect him to have a particular important season and I was pretty happy that he was the character with more screentime. I totally expected Jon for that crown. I didn’t expect clever plans either because the show was rushing to the end and there was no time for that. So I liked the emotional season he had. I think his scenes with Jaime were one of the strongest part of the season.
Alfie Allen
Ian Glen
Richard Dormer
Rory McCann
As an aside, congratulations to our very own Osha, Natalia Tena, for joining “The Mandalorian” cast alongside GOT alumnus Pedro Pascal in the titular role. You can see her for a fraction in the new trailer, she is the purple twil’ek winking…LOL…
https://i.redd.it/915tzd4d7fi31.png
By the way the baldheaded guy in front of Natalia, is comedian Bill Burr…
And Ming Na joined the cast which is even better. This series is looking more and more like the heir to “Game Of Thrones”…LOL…
Rory McCann for the win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!