Watchers on the Wall Awards Season 7: Best Supporting Actress – Preliminary Round

WotW season7-awards

We kicked off Watchers on the Wall Awards voting this week, and we’re going to keep it rolling this weekend! Today we’re actually covering two categories – Best Leading Actress and Best Supporting Actress. With the first, however, we’re going to skip the preliminary voting, because there are just four candidates, therefore they’ll be going straight to the final round (taking place in a few weeks). The nominees for Best Leading Actress will be: Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, Sophie Turner, and Maisie Williams. Congrats, ladies!

Onto the voting for Best Supporting Actress!

The standard rules: Select up to FIVE nominees from the poll. You can choose fewer if you like, but you cannot choose more than 5. (Visit the initial WotW Awards post for a complete explanation of the rules and process.)

At the end of 72 hours (Tuesday 10/24/17 at 4PM Eastern Time), whichever five actresses 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 Actress in a few weeks.

Thanks to Greatjon of Slumber for tallying up the initial nominee suggestions. Now, let’s vote!

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Sue the Fury
Susan Miller, Editor in Chief of WatchersOnTheWall.com

29 Comments

  1. I had to go with

    Dame Diane Rigg: her final scene was outstanding. She has already proven to be an amazing actress and I was sad to see her leave GoT but her final scene made up for that. She gave us one of the best scenes in the whole series. I hope she’ll win in this category.

    – Runner up: Indira Varma : even though her character wasn’t appreciated by most fans, we can all agree that Varma is an excellent actress. Just like Rigg, she owned her final scene. What she could do with no words, was simply amazing. That was truly one of the best acted scenes in Game of Thrones and showed what Indira Varma was capable of if she were given better scenes. She deserves a 2nd place this year, no less.

    – 3rd in line is Ellie Kendrick: I admit that I was a bit upset about her final scene. It was so underwhelming and the character deserved much better. Even though the scene was very short, Kendrick’s acting was on point there and I could definitely feel her emotions.

    – 4rd is Gemma Whelan: Gemma was terrific during the naval battle between the Greyjoys. I do have a soft spot for her character and was quite sad when she realized that her brother wouldn’t save her. Her acting was great, as always. I wished to have seen more of her in season 7, though.

    – 5th is Carice van Houten: she would be much higher if she were given more screentime. Her conversation with Varys was really great and Van Houten is doing an amazing job portraying a broken, more down-to-earth Melisandre. The way she layered her character really deserves a nomination.

  2. I think I voted for Dame Diana Rigg and Indira Varma during the nomination process but after considering the preparation and stagecraft that went into her courtyard sparring scene, and her wonderful exchange with the Hound at the Dragonpit, I’ve got to add Gwendolyn Christie to the mix!

  3. Indira Varma as Ellaria Sand

    Diana Rigg as Olenna Tyrell

    Nathalie Emmaunel as Missandei

    Gwendoline Christie as Brienne of Tarth

    Ellie Kendrick as Meera Reed

    Honorable Mention: Carice van Houten, Gemma Whelan, and Hannah Murray are all worthy. In a strange way, I find it easier to cast a ballot when there more potential choices, as I feel less like I’m slighting the ones that I ultimately don’t vote for. All of these ladies did great work in Season 7, and I’ll be happy with whatever final five we wind up with.

    I will say that I’m very pleased that Indira Varma is being considered in the Supporting Actress category rather than the Guest Actress category. She technically could have qualified there, as she only appeared in two episodes of Season 7 and 13 total episodes of the series. But as a series regular for three seasons, I thought that it would’ve been a bit disingenuous to consider her a Guest performer. She would’ve easily been my pick were she competing in that category, but I’m glad that I get the chance to vote for her here instead. In fact – tipping my hand here – she’s going to get my vote in the final round for this category as well (assuming that she makes the cut, of course). Her non-verbal portrayal of Ellaria’s helpless anguish in the scene where she has to watch Cersei poison Tyene absolutely blew me away.

  4. Diana Rigg: The scene stealer! Her advice to Dany (You’re a dragon; be a dragon) and, of course, her death scene confessional to Jaime….what an impact she made!

    Carice Van Houten: She brought Ice and Fire together.

    Gwendoline Christie: All of her scenes in KL.

  5. Wow! This was hard, as the Supporting Actor/Actress ones always are. All eight of these actresses gave spectacular performances this season, often with only two or three scenes.

    I went for:

    Gwendoline Christie – The Dragonpit scenes with the Hound and Jaime were fantastic. Whether it is a comedic scene between Brienne and Tormund, or a serious one with Sansa, we get to see so much of who Brienne is in a short period of time. And that is down to performance. Her fight scene with Maisie was awesome, and it was clear that they’d spent time perfecting that.

    Nathalie Emmanuel – I loved the Missandei/Grey Worm arc this season, and the scene between them in Stormborn was beautifully shot and acted. Not only in the scene with Liam and Kit, but throughout the season, Nathalie was fantastic at demonstrating (often not with dialogue) Missandei’s loyalty to Daenerys and how highly she regards her queen.

    Ellie Kendrick – Her screen time has sadly always been limited, and this time it was just three short scenes, but her performance is always spot on and memorable. The pain she displays in the farewell with Bran is heartbreaking, and her delivery of you died in that cave was simply perfect.

    Diana Rigg – The death scene at Highgarden with Jaime was one of my favorite Olenna scenes over the five seasons she appeared in. It was just spectacular, and a huge part of that was down to Diana and Nikolaj’s performances. Again, we have an actress conveying so much and doing so much with limited time on screen. I’m really going to miss her next season!

    Indira Varma – Throughout the time she’s been on the show, Indira has been fantastic. She has showed us so many sides of Ellaria and I loved the scene she had with Gemma. But ultimately she was one of my picks because of the dungeon scene in which Cersei poisons Tyene. Indira had no lines in that scene, but she wordlessly conveyed the anguish Ellaria goes through knowing her daughter is going to die and that she cannot do anything to stop it. Stunning, stunning scene and stunning, stunning performance.

  6. Indira Varma, her performance in the cells was really one of the best acting performances of the season.

  7. In no particular order: Gwendoline Christie, Nathalie Emmanuel, Indira Varma, Gemma Whelan and Diana Rigg.

  8. They’re all great actors who’ve done some great, even extraordinary work over the seasons, but the problem now is that many of them had very little screen time in season 7.

    I think Diana Rigg is going to walk it. She is also my #1 choice.

    Next, for me, is Indira Varma, for that extraordinary scene in the dungeons with Cersei – she didn’t even have any lines but it was so powerful (helped, of course, by Lena Heady’s exceptional performance as Cersei). She was also solid in all her other scenes.

    My third place has to go to Nathalie Emmanuel for the tender and poignant scene with Grey Worm – and some comic relief interactions with Ser Davos. Who can forget her earnestness in reciting “You are in the precence of Daenerys Targaryen (titles, titles…)” and Davos going: “This is Jon Snow.” (tiny head wink from Jon) “He’s King in the North.” Even before that Davos tried to “small talk” to her, but as a former slave and a total “Dany-believer” she was baffled, didn’t know what to make of it. Later – maybe after some self-reflection? – she tried to explain her stance to Davos and Jon. Nathalie has done such a delicate, nuanced job of portraying Missandei.

    Fourth comes Gwen Christie. While she didn’t have much screen time, it included such highlights of the season as Brienne’s sparring session with Arya (I’m appreciating all the work Gwen and Maisie put into it), the “surrogate parent” exchange with Sandor in KL, and – gasp – “Fuck loyalty!” To Jaime, of all people! Gwen inhabits Brienne so perfectly.

    My last vote was a tough one. They all deserved it, mostly on past merits as they had such limited screen time in S7. I’m gonna go with Ellie Kendrick, just for some Meera love – since Meera’s not getting any from weirdo Bran or apparently the other Starks. Or the showrunners, grrr!

  9. All the ladies did fine work last season, but Dame Diana Rigg was awesome sauce served in a Britannia silver bowl.

  10. Hey Sue–
    I mentioned this late in the first poll’s thread: I don’t see anywhere to vote! I had seen a button come up that said something like “Take the Poll”, but then it disappeared and it never came up again. It’s not here either. The problem might be caused by how I have my Mac configured, but I doubt it. Any suggestions?
    SRR

  11. Top choice for me is Diana Rigg. I’m sure I’ll have enough time to talk about her awesomeness later.

    I’m actually not a big fan of Indira Varma’s work earlier in the series, and I don’t think it’s just the writing. I loved her in Rome, but there was something about her delivery that felt forced and inauthentic to me. For example, I didn’t love her performance in the Painted Table scene early on in “Stormborn.” But even I recognize that she was incredible in her last scene, so she is definitely deserving of a nomination.

    The sex scene between Missandei and Grey Worm was one of my favorite scenes of the season. So Nathalie Emmanuel is another easy vote to cast.

    Gwendoline Christie is always good, even if she doesn’t get very much material. She didn’t have much to do this year, but the combination of her scene with Arya and her expressive performance during the Dragonpit Summit push her into my top five.

    Meera Reed is a pretty underdeveloped character, and not really one I care too much about, to be honest. But Kendrick manages to be very good in the role. I am probably the only person who likes the idea of her goodbye with Bran being her last scene in the series, mostly because I thought Kendrick did such a great job in the scene. That would be a far more heartbreaking and, honestly, interesting farewell to the character than if she ended up dying in a battle, in my opinion. That opinion aside, there’s no question she did an incredible job in that scene, really delivering the emotional punch necessary to make Bran’s transformation compelling. For that moment, Ellie Kendrick manages to nab the fifth slot for me.

    Carice van Houten, Gemma Whelan, and Hannah Murray are all very good actresses, but none of them had a scene/moment where they really shined this year. I’m okay with some characters taking more of a back seat for a season, but here’s hoping they get a meatier moment or two next year (and maybe fill in some of the vacant slots in the Supporting Actress category for next year, now that Rigg, Varma and probably Kendrick won’t be available next time).

  12. -Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei (Missandei definitely had more screen time this season than she’s had in a long time–almost certainly the most she’ll ever have, considering the role is pretty minor–and Nathalie rose to the occasion.)
    -Ellie Kendrick as Meera Reed (Always loved Ellie, and she did so much with so little, even more so this season than normal. Her parting scene with Bran was, for me, much more emotional than most of the “big feels” moments this season.)
    -Dame Diana Rigg as Olenna Tyrell (Seriously, how can you not? Especially since it’s the last we’ll see of her…)
    -Carice van Houten as Melisandre (One of my personal favorite performances in the show ever since her first appearance in S2. She IS Melisandre, in all of her mystery and complexity.)
    -Indira Varma as Ellaria Sand (While not a fan of show Ellaria, Indira is amazing, and naturally her final scene with Cersei was phenomenally acted by all parties involved. So much incredible talent all jammed into that little dungeon cell. Easily one of the best of S7.)

    Honorable Mention: Gwendoline Christie. While always great as Brienne–and despite having more screen time than others listed–I don’t feel like she had any real standout moments this year. Yes, there was the sparring session with Arya, but the way it was shot, that really came across as a blatantly fanservicey “Look at how badass Arya is now!” moment to me than anything, even with the two of them being on roughly equal ground. Aside from that, she had a little bit with Sansa and some more of the “Tormienne” stuff which is amusing but wearing a little bit thin. No worries, though, Gwen. I’ve nominated you consistently in the past and I fully expect I will again before all is said and done!

  13. I also had assumed that Indira Varma would be up for guest actress. I wouldn’t mind normally, but now we’re all going to somehow choose between her and Diana Rigg during the final round! I have a feeling I’m not alone in saying that’s going to be a very tortuous decision to make. Regardless, here are my choices, in no particular order:

    Diana Rigg
    Indira Varma
    Carice van Houten
    Ellie Kendrick
    Nathalie Emmanuel

  14. This was tough:

    I went with Gemma, because the look in her face when Reek reapeared was heartbreaking.

    Ellie – her character is one of the most understated. Again, Bran’s treatment of her and her voice breaking when she said “you died at that cave” brought tears to my eyes. It is possible we don’t see her again, and this saddens me.

    Gwendoline – just because she is becoming more and more of an ambassador and an advisor to Sansa (she warned her about LF), she’s becoming more observant, she had funny scenes, action scenes, etc.

    Diana Rigg – had one of my favorite scenes from the season. Telling Jaimie about Joffrey was the last play by one of the top players in the land. RIP Queen of Thornes.

    And I voted for Indira Varma, because even though she little material to work with this season, her facial expressions in the Queen’s Justice episode was amazing. She could not speak but there was no need to.

  15. Stark Raven’ Rad,

    I’m on a MacMini running OS 10.12.4 and occasionally have the same problem but never on this site. Even my iMac running Snow Leopard shows buttons or at least live areas where buttons are supposed to be. It may jusr be something in your config like you think or maybe a missed upgrade to a system app?

  16. I would vote for Littlefinger, the Freys, Olenna, and Ellaria & Tyene.

    A man needs no name:
    Stark Raven’ Rad,

    I’m on a MacMini running OS 10.12.4 and occasionally have the same problem but never on this site. Even my iMac running Snow Leopard shows buttons or at least live areas where buttons are supposed to be. It may jusr be something in your config like you think or maybe a missed upgrade to a system app?

    Thank you. I’m on a 5YO Macbook Pro and running El Capitan 10.11.6 (because of its age I hesitate to update these days). I had tried to find a live area before and tried again. No dice. I’ll see if I can borrow the Spouse’s computer to do this.

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