The 2016 Emmy Awards season is officially underway! To celebrate, we’re highlighting a few of this year’s nominees whose recognition from the Television Academy feels long overdue. These hard-working acting veterans consistently deliver brilliant performances in everything they do—but this year, in these roles, their work practically demands that statuette of a winged woman holding aloft an atom. Which actors do you think are especially deserving?
When Titus Andromedon sashayed his way onto the small screen last year in the inaugural season of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” the world was not prepared for his fabulousness. The eccentric struggling actor, as portrayed by the less eccentric but once-struggling actor Tituss Burgess, had Netflix audiences in stitches. He also gave voice (sometimes a phenomenal singing voice) to working actors everywhere.... Let’s just say it was easy to relate to the character’s pitiful day jobs and hapless “Lion King” auditions.
READ: “The ‘Unbreakable’ Tituss Burgess”
Season 2 of Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s hit comedy treaded new ground for Kimmy (Ellie Kemper), Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski), and Lillian (Carol Kane), but most poignantly for Titus, who finally found love and a legitimate acting gig—with plenty of doubt and self-sabotage along the way. Burgess’ performance deepened to match the material, despite never sacrificing his skill at delivering the absurd zingers that make his character unlike any other on TV.
We’re raising a glass of pinot noir and counting down the reasons Burgess, nominated a second time for the supporting actor in a comedy Emmy, should win big with the Television Academy this year.
His mastery of throwaway lines...
The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quality of Fey and Carlock’s jokes fit Burgess’ comic sensibilities like a cashmere glove. In his cover story last year, he told Backstage about his first scene on “30 Rock,” which had to be refilmed because Fey was laughing too loudly just off-camera. Since then she has helped provide the actor the material he needs to shine—which he does especially in the tiniest jokes. Watch the split second Burgess zigs when you think he’s going to zag:
...and the bigger punchlines.
The actor’s take on the series’ more obvious jokes is equally deft. When a punchline needs to be huge, Burgess knows exactly how to give Titus that larger-than-life quality. But sometimes an out-of-left-field joke requires muted seriousness. Titus’ idiosyncratic opinions, about Cate Blanchett for example, are sold with utter sincerity.
His chemistry with Mike Carlsen.
In Season 2, Titus slowly but surely made his way into a healthy romantic relationship with Mikey (Mike Carlsen). The two aren’t exactly your typical couple—one a recently out construction worker, one a jaded diva reluctant to teach the other about being gay—but they learn and get to know each other as any budding soulmates do. Watching Burgess and Carlsen embrace both that intimacy and the odd-couple aspects of their characters’ relationship is as touching as it is funny.
Photo by Eric Liebowitz/Netflix.
Murasaki the geisha.
The season’s third installment finds Titus in a position familiar to plenty of actors: putting on a solo stage show! Being Titus, he decides to create one based on...Murasaki, the sorrowful geisha he counts among his former lives, of course. Fey and Carlock have never shied away from depicting race in a frank and irreverent way, as the clip below makes clear. Burgess understands that a bit involving a black man in a kimono and full geisha makeup demands wholehearted commitment to tongue-in-cheek. It helps that he sounds fabulous warbling Murasaki’s notes.
His delivery while singing...
Speaking of which, those vocals are always stunning. A musical theater-trained actor with multiple Broadway credits, Burgess can mold his voice to whatever “Kimmy Schmidt” may require. The fifth episode in Season 2 features brilliant send-ups of Broadway tunes from Jeff Richmond, and each seem engineered to show off Burgess’ vocal prowess and comedic timing.
...especially Season 2’s Trident commercial song.
During the season’s penultimate episode, Titus becomes debilitatingly ill just before a big audition. Delirious yet determined, he launches into an improvised song about Trident gum right there in the audition room. People will tell you Season 1’s “Peeno Noir” was Burgess’ most triumphant musical moment, but those people are wrong. His ode to “outside bones” is even better: hysterical, seemingly off-the-cuff, and utterly bizarre.
WATCH: “Emmys 2015: Tituss Burgess on Storytelling, Acting Advice, and Tina Fey”
The awards campaign.
While an actor’s campaign for a big award doesn’t necessarily constitute a reason to give him said award, Burgess and the “Kimmy Schmidt” team are doing such a bang-up job promoting his work. Who could forget Titus’ hilariously inept audition for “Hamilton,” after all?
Or this amazing ad?
Courtesy Netflix.
Regardless of the Emmys results come Sept. 18, Burgess deserves all the praise and accolades thrown at him. Shine on, you crazy beef jerky in a ball gown.
Hoping to win an Emmy? Check out our television audition listings! And for more acting advice, watch here: