Rami Malek, Mr. Robot. “I always felt like an outsider and this role really speaks to that,” Rami Malek told the HFPA.  “He is someone who feels alienated and ostracized.  One of the most powerful things about this show is that anyone who feels different because of race or religion or the way they think, they can assimilate to him.”  He is talking about his character Elliot, a cybersecurity hacker who suffers from clinical depression and social anxiety disorders.  Recruited by Mr. Robot, a mysterious radical, he finds himself in a group of similar misfits bent on hacking into a corporation’s records to cancel all consumer debt.  The corporation happens to be a client of Elliot’s employer.  More than just a tech-y show, the themes of addiction and mental illness are explored, and Malek finds great satisfaction in fan mail from similarly afflicted viewers.  This is his second Golden Globe nomination for the series which just completed its second season.  It has been renewed for a third to air next year.Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul. Second time Globe nominee Bob Odenkirk for Better Call Saul, the spin-off series from Breaking Bad, doesn’t read his scripts very closely.  Maybe the comedian in him is joking, but here’s what he told us – “I really don’t.  I read the parts I am in and then I skim the parts I am not in.  It’s not just because I am a lazy son of a bitch.  It’s because as an actor, I feel like I should only know what my character knows and I shouldn’t know what’s going on off-screen.”  Be that as it may, his method is obviously working.  A critical and fan favorite, the show has been renewed for a third season.  Set six years before Breaking Bad, Odenkirk plays Saul Goodman, now going by the name Jimmy McGill, a shady and resourceful lawyer who will do anything to stay out of court.  Fans are still waiting, by the end of the second season, for him to become Saul.Matthew Rhys, The Americans.  Matthew Rhys is one half of a KGB spy couple, along with Keri Russell (also nominated this year), in the Cold War era show The Americans airing on FX.  Rhys explains the appeal of the show to the HFPA.  “We are not Mission Impossible spies.  What’s interesting to me is where the cracks lie, where they show they are fallible.  It’s people struggling to do their job, to hold down a relationship and a family, but with incredibly heightened stakes.”  The Jennings live in northern Virginia working at a travel agency as their cover.  In the course of their missions, they are required to don various disguises to play other characters, an actor’s challenge that Rhys relishes.  Series creator Joe Weisberg is an ex-CIA agent and has to run every script by his former employers.Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan. After four seasons as the title character on the Showtime series Ray Donovan, Liev Schreiber wants us to know “I am not Ray.  And it’s fine if people think I am because that is great.  But wait till you see the next thing.  As long as they don’t think I’m Liev.”  He is so identified with the ‘fixer’ that he plays on the show, that out of his five Golden Globe nominations, four are for playing Donovan.  The series is set in Los Angeles where Schreiber cleans up scandals and fixes problems for the high-profile Hollywood clients of his law firm – arrangements that include bribery, threats, violence – ideally suited for a Boston thug.  When dad played by Jon Voight is released from prison and shows up to get into the action and settle a few scores, Ray has to deal with problems on the homefront as well.  A fifth and final season has been ordered by Showtime.Billy Bob Thornton, Goliath.  Billy Bob Thornton has played lawyers before but not the one that he plays in the new Amazon series Goliath.Fargo two years ago. También en español.