“It’s mind-blowing. You’re not sure what you’re saying, you’re not sure what’s going on,” recalls Joe Morton (“Scandal“) during our recent video chat (watch below) about his Emmy win last year. “The first thing is relief: it’s over, one way or the other. Then you realize, oh, they actually called my name.”
Morton won his Emmy as Best Drama Guest Actor last year for playing the duplicitous Rowan Pope on “Scandal.” This year, due to a new Emmy ruling, he’ll be campaigning in the race for Drama Supporting Actor as he appeared in more than half of the episodes. “The caliber of actors and the caliber of the category is just a much more difficult category. I don’t know that any of it is more or less cutthroat than it was before, it just means it’ll be a harder push.”
Emmys MVP: Matt Czuchry gives arresting ‘Good Wife’ performance
And what about the buzz-worthy “Scandal” finale, where Morton’s character finally got his comeuppance? “It’s kind of like schizophrenia, right? Eli and Rowan embody the same vessel. On one hand, because where we see where he ends up … we think, he’s gonna take that place over in a second. On the other hand, he has at play possibly Cyrus and Mellie who also find themselves on the outs, if you will. So, we’ll see. I don’t know. It’s hard to tell what Shonda [Rhimes] will come up with.”
After being a guest star for three years, will Morton be promoted to series regular status anytime soon? “It’s not gonna happen for a couple of reasons. The biggest reason is that I have another show that I’m doing at the same time. I’m starting ‘Proof’ that will come on the air June 16. So because of that, because I have a contract there, I can’t become a regular on ‘Scandal.’ But I think the recurring thing will probably continue or I hope it will continue.”
Also in our chat, Morton tells us what scenes were edited out of the Season 4 finale, what episodes he’s thinking of submitting if he’s nominated for the Emmy, and working with Bellamy Young on both “Scandal” and “The X-Files.”
2015 Emmy contenders for drama series – Discuss in our fun forums
Make your predictions and you could win our $1,000 prize as well as a place of honor on our leaderboard and a starring role in next year’s Top 24 Users (the two dozen folks who do the best predicting this year’s Emmys line-up).
Average Gold Derby users just like YOU often turn out to be our smartest prognosticators, so it’s important that you give us your predictions. Your picks influence our User racetrack odds, which also factor into our official combined odds.
The Top 24 Users did the best at predicting last year’s Emmy nominations (78.55%) when competing against Gold Derby’s Editors (77.68%), all Users (74.78%) and the Experts (74.64%). Which group will be victorious this year?
Register/log in to your account (or create an account with one click using Facebook, Twitter, or Google) so you can also compete to predict the Billboard Music Awards and Tony Awards winners plus such TV shows as “The Voice,” “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race,” “Dancing with the Stars” and “Game of Thrones.”
