When you watch Ozark, you would never know that the woman playing budding criminal mastermind, Ruth Langmore, is a city girl from New York. That’s because the sound of her voice on the show is pure Appalachia. I know something about this. Having been born in Kentucky, I recognize that rustic, mountain-worn voice anywhere. And Julia Garner does it like someone from back home.
Of course, that’s not the only reason to marvel at her performance on Netflix’s answer to Breaking Bad, it’s merely the first one. Because everything that follows the timbre of her voice is made all the more authentic by the sound coming from her mouth. Ruth is twenty-something going on two hundred and six. You must believe in that voice from the get go to buy into the actor playing her. And oh my, how Garner delivers.
As I said, it doesn’t end there. Garner gives one of the best internal performances on television. While Ruth has no trouble raising her voice and acting out, in her quieter moments, you can see and feel her thinking through the myriad issues and complications she encounters while serving as both her father’s (a terrific Trevor Long) and Marty Byrde’s (Jason Bateman) second in command. Her ability to balance Ruth’s impetuousness with her capacity to scheme and problem solve is a wonder to behold. Ruth is constantly walking on a thin line. While she is a Langmore through and through, she wishes she were more of a Byrde. Take note of the fear she regards her father with and then contrasts it with the way she is around Marty – a man who both recognizes her intelligence and respects it. Ruth’s father is nature. Marty Byrde is nurture (of a kind – we’re still talking about people laundering drug money here).
Garner’s performance here could not be further away from the television role she is probably most known for – that of the vulnerable upper-middle-class ingenue, Kimberly, on The Americans. I know we aren’t supposed to be shocked by an actor’s versatility, but these two roles might as well exist on different planets. There was simply no way to prepare yourself for Garner as a young woman living on the margins of deepest, darkest, rural Missouri.
I was disappointed – to say the least – when Garner’s work on Ozark did not earn her an Emmy nomination after season one. However, the Academy righted that wrong this year, placing Garner among the six nominees. It Could be an uphill battle for her to take home the prize – the fearsome GoT foursome could be hard to get around in a year where Thrones looks likely to wear out a path to the podium next month. But there’s another way to look at that too. Maybe Lena, Gwendoline, Maisie, and Sophie will split the vote, leaving Garner and Killing Eve’s wonderful Fiona Shaw with a chance.
If it should happen that Garner’s name is called between the hours of 8PM and 11PM Eastern standard time on September 22nd, it won’t be just because the women of GoT cannibalized their own votes. More importantly, it will happen because she has given a singular, head-spinning performance that operates under an immense degree of difficulty. There is only one Ruth Langmore. As I watched the second season, it became more and more clear to me, there is also only one Julia Garner.
She owns this role. It’s the best performance on television right now. I won’t concede an inch. And If she wins on the last night of summer in the year of our lord, 2019, it will be because she damn well deserves to.
You can read my recent interview with Julia here.
Excellent essay as always. I’m never disappointed in anything David Phillips writes.
I like Julia Garner’s chances next year provided she has a decent script for the 3rd season of Ozark.
I’ve been looking at Goldderby’s website and following their polls on who they think has a great shot of winning in the supporting actress in a drama series. And, I have to say that they have Julia Garner leading as far as the EXPERTS choosing who will win. However, in the ODDS TO WIN section, all of the EXPERTS has both Julia Garner and Maisie Williams tied at 4 to 1 chances of winning. It sounds like that the EXPERTS are factoring Vote-Splitting.
However, the reason why she is leading in this category is because 4 G.O.T. actresses are nominated and most of these experts believe that POTENTIAL Vote-splitting will catapult Julia to the top when it’s all said and done. Also, most of these Goldderby experts are choosing Julia Garner because she is a safe bet if Vote-splitting does occur.
I disagree with this notion. In the past vote-splitting may have played a significant role. However, this year is a bit different in that Game of Thrones Season 8 has been nominated for 32 emmy nominations. That should be a clue that the 24,000 plus emmy voters of the Television Academy has Game of Thrones on their minds. BIG TIME! So much so that they even nominated G.O.T. actors/actresses who submitted themselves for emmy contention.
Think about it for a second. The Crown, Handmaids Tale, Stranger Things and Westworld tv shows purposely delayed their season to miss the 2019 emmy cut-off point. It’s not hard to come to the conclusion as to why they did that. The Hollywood execs to those shows are not idiots.
The point that I am trying to make is that I find it hard to believe that Julia Garner is going to win the 2019 emmy for best supporting actress in a drama series. I believe it’s between Lena Headey and Maisie Williams. I think the 24,000 plus emmy voters of the television academy are focused on one person for this category.
I also believe that Julia Garner emmy nod is recognition of her great performances from season 1 and season 2. Provided the showrunners of Ozark has a sound beginning, middle and end for this series, I believe Ozark will be a monster. However, for 2019, it’s all about Game of Thrones.
If Julia Garner wins the 2019 emmy award I can’t hate on that. That tells me that Julia Garner’s performance for the 2nd season of Ozark outshined Maisie Williams, Lena Headey, Gwendoline Christie, Sophie Turner and Fiona Shaw. You cannot take that away from her. However, I cannot see it. If Game of Thrones was not in contention for the 2019 emmy year then Julia Garner has a 98 percent chance of winning. But, that is not the case this year.
I think the 2019 emmy award for best supporting actress in a drama series is going to Maisie Williams.
I watched the episode that Julia Garner submitted and it was good. Real Good. However, it was not over the top such that it demanded replay value. When I watched the episode that Maisie Williams submitted which was the “The Long Night” episode, it was a thrill. Yes, this episode was not about 1 person. However, Maisie’s performances from being confident in single-handedly killing off dead people to being in fear trapped inside a library of walking dead people to an emotional state of all hope is lost before being energized by Melissandre to giving the final death blow to the God of Death to save the entire continent of Westeros is what I would call tremendous replay value.
In fact, unless the 24,000 plus emmy voters have been sleeping under a rock during the week of april 28, 2019, they must have heard about what Maisie Williams character did from the millions of tweets from regular people to celebrities. The Long Night episode was the most tweeted about episode on twitter. Ever. They had to have seen the killing blow of the Night King on their favorite local tv news channel. They had to have seen the youtube videos of people doing the Arya challenge of dropping items from one hand to another. They had to see the MURAL that was created of Maisie Williams and the Blade that killed the Night King in the Middle of England.
The point that I am trying to make is that Julia Garner has to not only fight through 5 other contestants but, she also has to contend with what I just stated above. Julia Garner is going to have to convince the 24,000 plus emmy voters of the television academy that her performance in the second season of Ozark outshined what Maisie Williams did in season 8 of Game of Thrones.
You may have some inside knowledge of how emmy voting is approached and everything I just said would not be taken into consideration. If that is the case then I will be the first to congratulate Julia Garner if she pulls off this major victory.
But, for the record, I have all my money on Maisie Williams for the 2019 emmy award for best supporting actress in a drama series.
This was a great article on Julia Garner. Julia Garner is going to be a monster in Hollywood in the coming years.
I’m super late….but I hope you saw! I agree with everything you said about Maisie ..the episode as a whole was EPIC. You need to remember that there was a whole lot that went into that episode to give it that replay value….as in, it wasn’t Maisie alone that built that insane conclusion that people have been waiting for, for nearly a decade. There was so many twists and turns, and deaths, and ups and downs for all our favorite characters….that episode as a whole truly is one most epic episodes I’ve seen in my entire life…but again, it was not purely for Maisie…and while I was thrilled that Maisie was the one who killed him, I (unlike most people) was underwhelmed a bit with HOW she did it. The episode Julia submitted for Ozark was JULIAS episode. I mean, more than any other episode (and she was great in every episode) the episode she picked was PERFECT for this type of situation because there was so much pressure on her character in that episode, and she had so much going on.. it felt like she was on screen nearly the entire episode and she had much more time…and a lot more opportunities for the focus to be on HER and only HER…she was my prediction to win regardless of how many GoT ladies were nominated….GoT is one of the best series’ ever and this season was fantastic- they cleaned up- and rightfully so. GoT was the best overall show….but Julia Garner was the best in that one specific catagory hands down. Her performance of Ruth is honestly one of the most mesmerizing performances I’ve seen. She’s fantastic. She is equally as fantastic in the Americans, the author is right. She has an extremely bright future seeing how she is still pretty young.