Emmy spotlight: Allison Williams is heartbreakingly good in ‘Fellow Travelers’
“Fellow Travelers” has captivated viewers’ attention with its central couple of Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey. The Showtime series follows the two men in a romance affair that spans years, encompassing wars, political events, and catastrophes. However, while Bomer and Bailey provide the meat of the show, Allison Williams turns in a superb supporting performance as Lucy Smith, the daughter of a Senator and a childhood friend to Bomer’s Hawkins who married him. Critics have been fulsome in their praise of Williams’ skillful performance.
Daniel Fienberg (The Hollywood Reporter) explained: “Williams has become one of our most underrated performers by specializing in characters whose unlikable obliviousness is a defense mechanism, not a flaw. The show wants you to empathize with Lucy — the ‘other woman’ trapped in the middle of a love affair for the ages — but never to pity her, and Williams nails this instantly recognizable humanity. The tension any time Lucy is sizing up either her husband or her husband’s special friend is one of the best things in ‘Fellow Travelers.'”
Richard Roeper (Chicago Sun-Times) stated: “Allison Williams infuses Lucy with a quiet dignity that eventually gives way to an explosion of emotions built up over decades of knowing she was never Hawkins’ true love.”
André Hereford (Metro Weekly) opined: “In steely patrician mode, Williams limns a fine portrayal of a well-heeled wife who’s not willfully ignorant, but silent about the truth she recognizes — until the truth can’t be hidden any longer.”
Williams has never been nominated for an Emmy but plenty of previous slots in the Best TV Movie/Limited Series Supporting Actress category (Williams’ category), have gone to first-timers. Recent examples include Camila Morrone (“Daisy Jones and the Six”), Maria Bello (“Beef”), Annaleigh Ashford (“Welcome to Chippendales”), Natasha Rothwell (“The White Lotus”), and Kaitlyn Dever (“Dopesick”).
Williams’ profile as an actress is also the sort that gets nominated in this category — an ingenue who has had a few key movie roles and is breaking through in TV. Similar nominees of this kind of profile of performer include the aforementioned duo of Morrone and Sweeney as well as Letitia Wright (“Black Museum (Black Mirror)”), Shailene Woodley (“Big Little Lies”), and Moses Ingram (“The Queen’s Gambit.”)
Plus, we expect “Fellow Travelers” to be a big Emmys contender with predicted bids for Bomer, Bailey, Best Limited Series, and plenty of below-the-line nominations. Williams could be swept along for the ride in the same way many nominees in this category have done so before, such as Bello (“Beef”), Dever (“Dopesick”), Ashford (“Welcome to Chippendales”), and “The White Lotus” quadruple Rothwell, Connie Britton, Alexandria Daddario, and Sydney Sweeney.
An Emmy nomination just makes sense for Williams, whose career seems to be heading in that direction. While her career is still in its adolescent years, she’s a familiar face now thanks to roles in “Get Out” and “M3GAN,” while her supporting turn in “Girls” was pivotal. She earned a Critics Choice TV Award bid in 2016 for Best Comedy Supporting Actress for that show, so she’s been in the awards conversation before. That primed her and now this is the ideal opportunity for her first nomination — it’s a high-class, quality show with lots of supporters and a big budget behind it off-screen as well as on-screen.
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