Dream Emmy Ballot 2013: Lead Actor in a Drama

Bryan Cranston - "Walter White", Breaking Bad
Hugh Dancy - "Will Graham", Hannibal
Jon Hamm - "Don Draper", Mad Men
Peter Krause - "Adam Braverman", Parenthood
Damian Lewis - "Nicholas Brody", Homeland
Clarke Peters - "Albert Lambreaux", Treme
Matthew Rhys - "Phillip Jennings", The Americans

In each successive season of Breaking Bad, Walt's adversaries feel less like villains and more like markers on an irreversible path away from his humanity. Sometimes I find the show hard to watch because Cranston lays the grasping core of Walt's boundless ambition so bare. He makes the journey into nihilism feel unnervingly fearless. Dancy's work is intensely physical, but restrained - he looks like he feels Will's hauntedness in his bones, like it's eating away at him from the inside out. In past seasons, I've been impressed with the way Jon Hamm marks differences between Dick Whitman and Don Draper. Here, the circumstances of life conspired to create situations where he couldn't stop Dick from showing through Don's cracks, and Hamm made that dissembling a disconcerting facet of this season. The maximum is supposed to be six, but I couldn't choose between Krause and Peters so I just put both. They're characters on different sides of a cancer diagnosis, and both have some king-of-my-castle, control freak tendencies. Adam tries to hold it together and be supportive as a spouse in a situation without a playbook, and Albert copes with an illness that threatens to derail his hard-won authority while he refuses to relinquish the stubborn energy that makes it feel like he will outlive everyone. Lewis holds different Brodies all together in one man, not only shrouding his intent but showing how at sea he is in trying to figure out which has primacy. Rhys presents a bit of a contradiction, as a spy whose heart constantly threatens to appear ever-stronger on his sleeve, then overwhelm his mission. 

Honorable Mentions: Andre Braugher, Last Resort; Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire; Jonny Lee Miller, Elementary; Timothy Olyphant, Justified; Wendell Pierce, Treme; Kevin Spacey, House of Cards

I wouldn't be surprised to see: Kevin Bacon, The Following; Hugh Bonneville, Downton Abbey; Michael Chiklis, Vegas; Jeff Daniels, The Newsroom; Michael Emerson, Person of Interest; Nathan Fillion, Castle; Kelsey Grammer, Boss; Michael C. Hall, Dexter; Jeremy Irons, The Borgias; Andrew Lincoln, The Walking Dead; William H. Macy, Shameless; Eric McCormack, Perception; Jeremy Piven, Mr. Selfridge; Dennis Quaid, Vegas; Tom Selleck, Blue Bloods; Aden Young, Rectify

Dream Emmy Ballot 2013: Supporting Actor in a Drama

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau - "Jamie Lannister", Game of Thrones
Noah Emmerich - "Stan Beeman", The Americans
Jack Huston - "Richard Harrow", Boardwalk Empire
Vincent Kartheiser - "Pete Campbell", Mad Men
Mads Mikkelson - "Hannibal Lecter", Hannibal
Corey Stoll - "Peter Russo", House of Cards

Anyone who's read A Storm of Swords suspected a standout year was coming for Jamie Lannister, but Coster-Waldau made one of those glorious adaptive leaps and delivered tenfold, seeming capable of accessing emotional spaces even Martin didn't know about. Emmerich's performance made The Americans a vitally three-part show instead of a duet. Stan was one of the most fascinatingly gray characters of this year in television - not an idealist but neither fully hardened by his experiences, dedicated to his job but undermined by his heart. Emmerich found a place right in the middle all its own. I feel like I gush about Huston and Kartheiser every year - they're my favorites in two stacked ensembles. What hasn't already been said? Huston, with his now-trademark low affect, drew the audience in to Richard's relationship with Julia and his quest to keep Tommy's parents alive in his memory, but never without the undercurrent of doom suggesting it could all fall apart as so many things have for him. Kartheiser spent the season at a low boil - Pete's impotent rage, barely contained behind a mask of civility, felt like it could suddenly blow up and take the whole agency, if not the entire Time-Life building, with it. Mikkelson proved another adaptive standout - it's not just that he formulated something entirely separate from the legacy of Anthony Hopkins, but the pairing of faux amiability and creeping chilliness that convinces you that no one would take too close a look at Dr. Lecter until it was already too late. In a show that could frequently feel too cold, too glossy, and too calculated, Corey Stoll's performance felt like a real, beating heart. Russo's earnestness alongside his inability to keep from defeating himself placed a real note of tragedy amid the endless strategizing of House of Cards.

Honorable Mentions: Jonathan Banks, Breaking Bad; Bobby Cannavale, Boardwalk Empire; Jim Carter, Downton Abbey; Josh Charles, The Good Wife; Kim Coates, Sons of Anarchy; Charlie Cox, Boardwalk Empire; Alan Cumming, The Good Wife; Matt Czuchry, The Good Wife; Guillermo Diaz, Scandal; Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones; Jay R. Ferguson, Mad Men; Jordan Gavaris, Orphan Black; Walton Goggins, Justified; Tony Goldwyn, Scandal; Stephen Graham, Boardwalk Empire; Rick Hoffman, Suits; Rob James-Collier, Downton Abbey; Michael Kelly, House of Cards; Dean Norris, Breaking Bad; Mandy Patinkin, Homeland; Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad; Jeff Perry, Scandal; Kevin Rahm, Mad Men; Nick Searcy, Justified; John Slattery, Mad Men; Eamonn Walker, Chicago Fire

I wouldn't be surprised to see: Michael Cudlitz, Southland; Larry Hagman, Dallas; Freddie Highmore, Bates Motel; Gabriel Mann, Revenge; David Morrissey, The Walking Dead; Ryan Philippe, Damages; Norman Reedus, The Walking Dead; Michael Rooker, The Walking Dead