Matthew Rhys lands two Emmy nominations as critics tip Welsh star for awards success

Mark Mansfield

Welsh actor Matthew Rhys has earned two Emmy nominations in different acting categories, with critics describing him as one of the biggest success stories of this year’s awards.

The Cardiff-born actor received nominations for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as Mayor Tom Loftis in Apple TV+’s Widow’s Bay and Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series for playing sociopath Nile Jarvis in Netflix thriller The Beast in Me.

The double nomination marks another milestone in Rhys’s career, having previously won an Emmy in 2018 for his portrayal of Philip Jennings in The Americans.

Writing in The Guardian, television critic Stuart Heritage described Rhys as “the winner of the entire day”, arguing that no other actor demonstrated the same breadth across two leading roles in different genres.

Heritage wrote that Rhys “finds himself in the position of being nominated for two different roles in two different genres” and suggested both performances were strong enough for him to “feasibly win both”. He added that Rhys “should be a lock” in the comedy category after what he called “an utter revelation” in Widow’s Bay.

The Apple TV+ series has emerged as one of this year’s surprise Emmy contenders after receiving widespread critical acclaim following its release earlier this year.

Rhys stars as Tom Loftis, the mayor of a cursed New England island attempting to transform his community into a tourist destination despite a series of supernatural threats.

The actor also received praise for his performance in The Beast in Me, in which he plays a charismatic property developer suspected of murdering his wife.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times after the nominations were announced, Rhys said he was aboard a boat in New York when he realised the nominations had been revealed.

“I checked my phone and there were the many texts,” he told the newspaper. “That was the exciting moment because if you haven’t been nominated, there’s no text.”

He said one congratulatory message particularly stood out.

“The real pinch-me moment… was Gary Oldman texting me to congratulate me. I thought, if I’d told my 18-year-old self that Gary Oldman would text me, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

‘Nervousness’

Reflecting on the success of Widow’s Bay, Rhys said the production team had been unsure how audiences would respond to its unusual blend of comedy and horror.

“There was a great degree of nervousness about how this would land,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “The fact that it has… and the variety of its resonances has really made me very happy.”

He also urged television studios to back more original programming.

“Take the risk. And challenge audiences. Everyone’s more than ready for it and thirsty for it in a real way,” he said. “Let’s put away the remakes and let’s just get after new challenging, original material.”

This year’s Emmy Awards presentation ceremony will be held in September.