“Now I have something to replace the candy jar I won in the fourth grade spelling bee,” joked “The Leftovers” star Carrie Coon in January 2016 when she won the Critics’ Choice TV Award for Best Drama Actress. “And my parents can’t put cotton balls in this, so that’s great.” Now that the drama is back on HBO and better than ever, we thought it’d be a fun to take a trip down memory lane and relive Coon’s charming moment in the awards spotlight. Watch Carrie Coon’s acceptance speech above.
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Sunday’s Season 3 premiere of “The Leftovers” ended with the mind-blowing twist of seeing Coon’s character Nora Durst as a bike-riding dove deliver in the near future, complete with old-age makeup. That’s a far cry from where we saw Nora last in the present day storyline, with her arm in a cast and happily married to Justin Theroux‘s Kevin Garvey.
“Thank you Tom Perrotta for dreaming up Nora Dust,” Coon remarked at the Critics’ Choice podium about the man who wrote the original “The Leftovers” novel that became the HBO cult hit. “And thank you [showrunner] Damon Lindelof for having a prostitute shoot her in the chest, basically just taking things to the next level.”
Coon also thanked the “Broadcast Television Critics for inviting so many of my cast mates here tonight,” nominees that included Theroux for Best Drama Actor, Christopher Eccleston for Best Drama Supporting actor, and Ann Dowd and Regina King for Best Drama Supporting Actress. “I do read reviews and we’re really grateful that you championed our show,” she added.
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“It’s really extraordinary to be among so many actresses who are playing roles equal to their complexity,” Coon concluded while clutching her trophy. “I think that elevates every story and so I say more of that, please.” The five leading ladies nominated alongside Coon were Shiri Appleby (“UnReal”), Viola Davis (“How to Get Away with Murder”), Eva Green (“Penny Dreadful”), Taraji P. Henson (“Empire”) and Krysten Ritter (“Jessica Jones”).
A hit with critics, the first two seasons of “The Leftovers” failed to earn any nominations at the Emmy Awards. However, with PBS’s “Downton Abbey” no longer on the air and fellow HBO drama “Game of Thrones” sitting out this eligibility cycle, might we see “The Leftovers” make its mark on the Emmys for this final season?
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