Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama

Nominees:
Emma D’Arcy (House of the Dragon)
Laura Linney (Ozark)
Imelda Staunton (The Crown)
Hilary Swank (Alaska Daily)
Zendaya (Euphoria)

A very diverse group of actresses all give remarkable performances in the Best TV Actress – Drama category for the 80^th Golden Globe Awards.

Those roles include a warrior princess (Emma D’Arcy, House of the Dragon), a housewife-turned-drug-cartel partner (Laura Linney, Ozark), Queen Elizabeth II (Imelda Staunton, The Crown), a disgraced reporter forced to work in Alaska (Hilary Swank, Alaska Daily) and a troubled young drug addict (Zendaya, Euphoria).

Zendaya revealed to Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview that she literally still has scars from filming the fifth episode of the 2022 second season of the TV drama, Euphoria, titled, “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird.”
The devastating episode finds her character, Rue, having a breakdown while in withdrawal from drugs and subsequently abandoning her family when they insist on trying to drive her to rehab. “It was a very tough day. I mean, I beat myself up,” Zendaya said in the interview. “I still have some scars on my legs and got quite a few bruises.” Euphoria creator Sam Levinson also told the magazine it was an episode he’d long wanted to make. “The general idea was always the same, which was this idea of, we cut right into an intervention and it’s Rue just ripping her life apart and setting her life on fire and kind of tearing everything to the ground to basically come to hopefully what feels like rock bottom for her.”

Imelda Staunton could make Globes history if she takes home the statue. The British star would then become the third actress – following Claire Foy and Olivia Colman – to win a Golden Globe playing the same role, Queen Elizabeth II, in the same series, The Crown. Staunton says playing the monarch at a later stage in her life was its own challenge. “I feel lucky that we are looking at their lives when it was very difficult,” she said in a global zoom press conference with the rest of the cast. “As an actor, you’ve got more stuff to do and therefore it’s extremely satisfying. (Creator) Peter Morgan writes great drama based around real people and real events but gives them heart, soul, brains and then investigates how people deal with difficulties when things start to go wrong. And we get to do that journey.”
Another unusual connection between a past and present Golden Globe nominee is Emma D’Arcy being nominated for playing next-in-line to the throne, Rhaenyra Targaryen, in the spin-off series, House of the Dragon, giving a nod to former Golden Globe nominee Emilia Clarke for originating the role of her descendant, Daenerys Targaryen, in the origin series, Game of Thrones. “I think Rhaenyra is fueled by that old Targaryen stuff,” D’Arcy told a 2022 Comic-Con panel. “I think probably the journey she goes on in this series is one of working out when to let that fire burn and when to dampen it.”