‘White House Plumbers’: Lena Headey could finally win her first Emmy

Luca Giliberti
·5 min read
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HBO’s five-part limited series “White House Plumbers” has been confirmed for a May 1 launch date, which means Lena Headey could have another shot at finally ascending the Emmy throne.

Headey is arguably overdue for an Emmy win after being paid dust for her iconic portrayal of Cersei Lannister on “Game of Thrones.” She received five — and to date her only — nominations for the hit fantasy series, in the drama supporting actress category (2014-16, 2018-19), but was denied the crown at every turn. Unfortunately for her and the rest of the “Thrones” cast, the acting branch of the TV academy didn’t care to reward the four-time Best Drama Series champ outside of Peter Dinklage, whose fan-favorite turn as Tyrion Lannister earned him Best Drama Supporting Actor bids for all eight seasons and a record four statuettes. It also didn’t help Headey that her character, the ice-cold, cunning ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, didn’t attract a lot of, uh, sympathy from viewers.

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SEE HBO finally announces premiere date for ‘White House Plumbers’: Watch the new trailer

But now that Headey is trying her luck at the Emmys with not only a different show but also a more academy-friendly role, she could finally be in for fruitful results. Created, written and executive-produced by showrunners Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck and directed by David Mandel (all Emmy winners for “Veep”), “White House Plumbers” dramatizes the behind-the-scenes story of Watergate, one of the biggest political scandals in American history. The series primarily follows President Richard Nixon‘s political saboteurs, E. Howard Hunt (Woody Harrelson) and G. Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux), as they accidentally topple the presidency they were zealously aiming to protect. Headey plays Hunt’s wife, Dorothy Hunt, an active CIA asset and a mother of four who tries to hold her family together while becoming entangled in her husband’s catastrophic misadventures.

Whether or not Headey actually lands a nom for the satirical political drama will, of course, depend on a number of different factors — the show’s reception and its ability to stand out among the flood of spring releases being chief among them. Also TBD is the size of Headey’s role, but if the trailer is any indication, you can probably bet on Dorothy Hunt being a prominent part of the story.

What the British actor already has going for her is that “Thrones” has made her a recognizable name and that the limited series/TV movie supporting actress race is currently still wide open. As of this writing, she sits in third place in the odds behind Niecy Nash-Betts (“Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”) and Claire Danes (“Fleishman Is in Trouble”). Rounding out the top seven are, in this exact order, Cherry Jones (“Five Days at Memorial”), Olivia Colman (“Great Expectations”), Headey’s “White House Plumbers” co-star Judy Greer and Anna Paquin (“A Friend of the Family”).

As our early predictions indicate, the safest — and arguably only safe — bets in the category right now are probably Nash-Betts and Danes since they’re the only potential nominees who’ve already received notable citations for their roles. Nash-Betts won the Critics Choice Award and reaped Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations for “Dahmer” this past winter, while Danes was also up for “Fleishman” at Critics Choice and the Globes. Nash-Betts, a four-time nominee in search of her first victory, is also riding an overdue narrative, and Danes could win on the strength of her “Me-Time” episode — her indisputable submission if she’s nominated — alone.

It’s for those reasons that Nash-Betts and Danes would likely also be Headey’s most formidable challengers for the win. But in the event of this three-horse race, Headey would have one important advantage over her two rivals: the recency of her show. Since the popular vote system was introduced in 2016, all but two winners in the limited series/TV movie supporting actress category have come from shows that debuted in the back half of the Emmy cycle. The two exceptions are 2018 victor Merritt Wever (“Godless”) and reigning champ Jennifer Coolidge (“The White Lotus”). But Wever likely capitalized on the vote-split between Penélope Cruz and Judith Light of Best Limited Series winner “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” while Coolidge was only nominated against women whose series also dawned very early in the Emmy cycle — more specifically, four of her “White Lotus” co-stars and two actors from fall release “Dopesick.”

SEE Emmy Experts Typing: Figuring out the scattershot limited series categories

So if “White House Plumbers” sticks the landing, critically and with audiences, don’t be surprised if this is the year Emmy voters finally bend the knee to Headey.

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