As we prepare for the 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards, Backstage is breaking down this year’s film and television ensemble work for your consideration. For more voting guides and roundups, we’ve got you covered here.
Main cast: Jenna Lyng Adams, Sarah Baker, Casey Thomas Brown, Michael Douglas, Lisa Edelstein, Ashleigh LaThrop, Emily Osment, Haley Joel Osment, Paul Reiser, Graham Rogers, Melissa Tang, Kathleen Turner
Casting by: Ken Miller, Tara Treacy, and Nikki Valko
Created by: Chuck Lorre
Distributed by: Netflix
Throughout its run, Netflix’s “The Kominsky Method” has captured the lives of Los Angeles entertainment professionals on the margins of success—both the has-beens and the strivers. However, what gives the Chuck Lorre comedy pathos is its exploration of the humility and humiliation that comes with advancing age. The series’ ensemble cast brings out the wide-ranging emotions that stem from these complicated situations with their funny, convincing, and heartrending performances.
Hollywood acting coach Sandy Kominsky may have seen better days, but in playing him, Michael Douglas proves that he’s still got it. He combines a physical performance that shows the effects of aging on his body and gait with an animated, quick-witted delivery that shows he’s a true master craftsman. Three seasons in, the award winner’s performance continues to be both amusing and acutely touching.
In Alan Arkin’s absence, Douglas creates onscreen magic with a new sparring partner: none other than Kathleen Turner, playing Sandy’s ex-wife Roz. Audiences familiar with their easy, natural chemistry in “Romancing the Stone,” “The Jewel of the Nile,” and “The War of the Roses” will be happy to discover that it’s very much still there. Watching Sandy and Roz needle and cajole each other makes for one of the most joyful experiences of this TV season; the pair clearly relish working together again, and it shows.
Douglas and Turner also have wonderful chemistry with Sarah Baker as Mindy, Sandy and Roz’s daughter. The three actors poignantly convey how time and love can thaw hearts and diffuse lifelong familial resentments. This season’s subplot surrounding Mindy’s wedding allows them plenty of moments to play against each other, revealing both affection and hurt. Warm yet wry, Baker manages to hold her own against Douglas as her character exasperatedly deals with her father’s distrust of her fiance Martin, played by Emmy nominee Paul Reiser.
Plenty of comedic material has been mined from the dynamic between a man and his partner’s father; Reiser deserves credit for capitalizing on this trope and then some. He also gets to act opposite guest star Christine Ebersole as his disapproving mother (with the help of age makeup), in addition to Douglas, Turner, and Baker. The veteran TV comedy star takes those prickly relationships in unexpected directions, zigging when you think he’ll zag.
Arkin’s Norman Newlander may have passed, but his legacy lives on in his daughter and grandson, played by Lisa Edelstein and Haley Joel Osment, respectively. Their characters might love each other, but they don’t like each other—particularly as they find themselves forced to cohabit with Sandy. As they banter and bicker, Edelstein and Osment hit the right notes of absurdity within their friction.
Sandy’s acting students round out the ensemble, played by Jenna Lyng Adams, Casey Thomas Brown, Emily Osment, Graham Rogers, and Melissa Tang. Their relationships with each other run the gamut of emotions, from jealousy and rivalry to support and acceptance. They also allow us to see other notes of Douglas’ performance: It’s in his work that he gets to show how experience and wisdom can nurture friendships—and maybe even lead to fulfilling his dreams late in life.
Douglas has been a familiar face for decades thanks to his longtime success as an actor. In “The Kominsky Method,” he gets to show us the flip side: what might have happened if he hadn’t achieved fame. Fittingly, the role lets him deliver what may be his most accomplished performance yet.
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