BENJAMONSTER AWARDS 2021: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited/Anthology Series

Today's award is Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited/Anthology Series!

Check out the nominees and winner from 2020!

This year's nominees are...

PAUL BETTANY as Vision in WandaVision (Disney+)

HUGH GRANT as Jonathan Fraser in The Undoing (HBO)

ETHAN HAWKE as John Brown in The Good Lord Bird (Showtime)

JOSHUA CALEB JOHNSON as Henry "Onion" Shackleford in The Good Lord Bird (Showtime)

EWAN MCGREGOR as Halston in Halston (Netflix)

NICK ROBINSON as Eric Walker in A Teacher (FX on Hulu)

And the Winner Is...

ETHAN HAWKE

The Good Lord Bird (Showtime)

There is one major reason that The Good Lord Bird worked as well as it did and that was Ethan Hawke. As the abolitionist John Brown, Hawke was truly insane as the best way possible. He had a manic energy that was at times inspiring and at times downright delusional. Hawke was so fully committed to the character and it wasn't even necessarily a well-researched portrayal of John Brown. It was a somewhat fictionalized and yet fully realized character who truly believed in his cause and his plans. Hawke sparkled on screen and it was one of those shows where I just felt like every scene without the star was just biding its time until Hawke came back on screen. The Good Lord Bird could have felt stodgy and boring and it never did thanks to Ethan Hawke. His Emmy nomination omission was easily the biggest snub among the 2021 Emmy nominations.

Thoughts on the Rest of the Nominees:

A lot of my favorite limited series this year were female-lead so this is a unique group of nominees and a lot of them are from series that didn't get a whole lot of nominations. Ewan McGregor was the sole nominee for Halston as the titular character. He was the best part of the uneven series with a compelling performance. Likewise, Hugh Grant was the most interesting part of The Undoing. The series was all over the place but Grant gave a very strong performance. Nick Robinson was a complicated character on A Teacher and managed to mostly be a very sympathetic figure with an understated performance. Hawke's co-star on The Good Lord Bird, Joshua Caleb Johnson had a very interesting story and some great scenes. Finally, Paul Bettany was perhaps overshadowed some by some of the other characters on WandaVision but he did very strong work playing the sitcom husband through the decades.

Tomorrow: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series!