Lili Taylor Deserves to Be an Emmy Frontrunner for ‘American Crime’

For the third consecutive year, ABC’s American Crime was a low-rated powerhouse of television acting. Each season has told a closed-ended story about American injustice that has starred a central core of recurring performers: Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton, Regina King, Richard Cabral, and Lili Taylor.

Each of the principal actors have been given their time to shine. King won Emmys for seasons 1 and 2, Huffman got an incredible showcase in season 2 as a morally compromised high school principal. At the outset of season 3, we made the argument that Regina King was the true lead of American Crime, and while her performance throughout season 3 was up to her usual standard, the show was never going to be quite that predictable. While King’s character became more of a supporting player, we got introduced to a couple at the season’s midpoint played by Timothy Hutton and Lili Taylor, at which point the whole show was thrown sideways. Taylor has always been a solid performer on American Crime. She was Emmy-nominated in season 2 for playing the mother of a gay teen who was sexually assaulted at a party. But in season 3, she was doing something else entirely.

Nick and Clair Coates are living a comfortable life, he running a furniture retailing company, she staying home to raise their young son. But as with anything on American Crime, you peel back the surface even a little, and you get to see the real, ugly thing underneath. The truth is that Nick’s business is failing, and Clair hires a Haitian nanny to help her take care of her son. The animosity between Nick and Clair is thick in the air — he resents her for quitting her career to stay at home — and Clair ends up taking out all this tension and anger on the nanny, Gabrielle. It’s a horrifying cycle of abuse, and if you’ve seen a Lili Taylor performance before, you know that she played it with terrifying, understated intensity.

Lili Taylor has been a fantastically memorable acting talent since the Mystic Pizza/Say Anything says of the late 1980s. In the ’90s, she became an indie darling for films like Short Cuts and particularly her starring role in I Shot Andy Warhol. In that film and in all her best roles (notably on Six Feet Under), she always brings a fascinating amount of ambiguity. Her heroes are often prickly and inaccessible; her villains tend to have captivating interior lives; she’s never going to make it easy for you. Clair Coates on American Crime is not an ambiguous character on the page — she’s in many ways a monster — but Taylor’s performance doesn’t let the audience off the hook quite so easy. She plays Clair as a kind of haunted creature who lost herself and the rest of her world a while ago. In a crowded field of competitors, she takes Best in Show honors for season 3.

Currently, there is no Hollywood bylaw that states that the best performer on a given season of American Crime should just be handed an Emmy on the spot, but that should probably change, right? As mentioned above, Regina King has taken the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series/Movie for two straight years. This year should be Lili’s year. …Of course, there is the small matter of the fact that the competition among actresses in the limited-series categories is frankly insane. Several weeks ago, I wrote about the massive pile-up in the Lead Actress category, with the Big Little Lies twosome of Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman going up against the Feud tandem of Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon. It’s no less crazed in the Supporting Actress category. To wit:

• Lili Taylor will be at minimum be competing with American Crime co-star Regina King, who will probably have a hard time three-peating in this category, but who still delivers a performance up to her own incredibly high standards.
• Big Little Lies brings both Shailene Woodley and Laura Dern to the table, with the latter being a huge threat to win.
• Michelle Pfeiffer, once imagined to be a lead contender, will be a big fish in the supporting pond for her role as Ruth Madoff in The Wizard of Lies.
• Oh you thought Ryan Murphy would somehow stop being a presence in this category? American Horror Story had nabbed 10 nominations in this field in the past five years, so don’t count out either Kathy Bates or Sarah Paulson for American Horror Story: Roanoke.
• And then there’s Feud, which could probably field a respectable quintet of nominees all on its own. Standing the best shot is likely Judy Davis for her delicious turn as gossip maven Hedda Hopper, though don’t count out the Hollywood factor that could get Catherine Zeta-Jones nominated for playing Olivia de Havilland. More discerning Emmy voters could throw some votes towards the incredibly deserving Jackie Hoffman and/or Allison Wright.
• Mary Elizabeth Winstead is currently stealing scenes in FX’s Fargo, which has been a steady Emmy performer through two seasons, and that shouldn’t change for season three.
• HBO won’t give this category up without a fight, either, so expect some campaigns for Diane Keaton in The Young Pope, Rose Byrne in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Jeannie Berlin in The Night Of.

So. By my count that’s 15 women in contention for six slots. And that’s without having to dig all that deep. Were I in the predictions game (heaven forbid!), I’d probably guess:

• Laura Dern
• Judy Davis
• Michelle Pfeiffer
• Regina King
• Kathy Bates
• Lili Taylor

Is that last one wishful thinking for someone who hopes that Emmy voters will see the performance he saw? Perhaps. But Taylor’s work speaks for her, and it’s more than good enough to earn her a spot on the ballot. From there, American Crime‘s performance of the year will just have to speak for itself.

Stream Season 3 of American Crime on ABC.com.