Just before her Emmy win at Saturday night’s Creative Arts ceremony, Margo Martindale chatted with Gold Derby about her chances and the small amount of screentime she had this past season on “The Americans” (watch below)
For our red carpet interview, she admitted to being “surprised… shocked actually” at a third straight nomination as Best Drama Guest Actress. Even though she only made one brief appearance on the FX program this year, she says, “I know that I’ll be back and more. I loved working with (Frank Langella). It was fun, but it was short.”
Related: Complete list of 2015 Creative Arts Emmy winners
Saturday marked Martindale’s second Emmy victory, following her first for a villainous role on “Justified” in 2011. Since then she has been working steadily on several shows, including the recurring role as KGB handler Claudia on the 1980s cold war period piece.
According to exclusive Gold Derby odds, Martindale was supposedly far behind in fifth place with 33/1 odds. Cicely Tyson (“How to Get Away with Murder“) was the frontrunner with 1/4 odds. Six-time champ Allison Janney (“Masters of Sex), who won this category last year for the same role, was in second place with 9/1 odds. First-time nominee Rachel Brosnahan (“House of Cards“) was in third at 25/1, followed by Diana Rigg (“Game of Thrones“) at 50/1. In last place was Khandi Alexander (“Scandal“).
In Martindale’s submitted episode “I Am Abassin Zadran,” Gabriel (Langella), the current handler for KGB spies Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell), meets with Claudia to reassure him about a course of action. Gabriel is having second thoughts about recruiting Philip and Elizabeth’s teenage daughter, but Claudia encourages him to proceed. She describes the fallout in Russia after a similar plan failed catastrophically with another family of spies, but she insists that their superiors have faith in Gabriel to succeed where others failed.
Related: Watch our Emmy webchats with many of this year’s nominees
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