I’m deputy editor at The Ankler and co-host of the Prestige Junkie podcast. My special Art & Crafts series this week celebrates the talented, Emmy-nominated artisans behind top shows — including cinematographers.
Having cast projects such as Barbie, Knocked Up, Superbad and Curb Your Enthusiasm, among other notable comedies, Allison Jones has a knack for finding future stars and award winners.
Just look at this year’s Emmy nominees.
In 1999, it was Jones who cast Freaks and Geeks with several then-unknowns turned future television fixtures — including 2026 nominees Linda Cardellini (DTF St. Louis) and Jason Segel (Shrinking). She also built the ensemble of 2005’s American remake of The Office around Steve Carell, then best known as a correspondent on The Daily Show and scene-stealer in Anchorman; he’s now an eight-time acting nominee, currently in the race for Rooster. She even helped put Jason Bateman back on the industry’s radar with Arrested Development in 2003, after a fallow period in his career; this year, he’s a double acting nominee for Black Rabbit and DTF St. Louis.
And then there’s Widow’s Bay, Apple’s breakout Emmy contender with 19 overall nominations including six for the show’s cast — notably Matthew Rhys in a rare comedic role and breakout star Kate O’Flynn — and recognition for Jones and her longtime collaborator Emily Buntyn in the comedy casting category.
“When the scripts came in, they were so good right off the bat — which you don’t get very often,” says Jones, a three-time winner for casting. “It was like, ‘Okay, this one — this is a good one.’”
Created by Katie Dippold and set in the fictional island town off the coast of New England that gives the show its title, Widow’s Bay is a tricky series to pull off — it’s a workplace comedy like Parks and Recreation or The Office about everyday annoyances and relationships, and then it’s also a terrifying supernatural thriller that draws inspiration from Stephen King, Jaws and The Shining. As a result, the cast needed to be flexible — funny, but able to pull off recognizable fear and terror — and as with The Office, preferably stocked with character actors and unknowns to allow viewers to buy into the premise.
“Emily and I were thrilled because there wasn’t anything for a traditional leading man or leading woman — with all due respect to our good-looking cast,” Jones says. “That’s rare. I haven’t had that since The Office.”
It started with Rhys, an Emmy winner for the FX drama The Americans, who was an early pick to play Tom Loftis, the Widow’s Bay mayor. “I don’t think anybody knew how good he was going to be,” says Jones. “I don’t think I’ve seen him in a comedy role like this before, and you have to call this a comedy role.”
But the cast arguably locked into place with O’Flynn, who stars as Tom’s deadpan assistant, Patricia. The British actress got her start in Mike Leigh’s 2008 movie Happy-Go-Lucky and appeared in 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby, as well as multiple U.K. television shows. To American viewers, however, she was largely unknown.
“I was watching her Zoom audition again last night, and I can tell — not with her because she’s the ultimate pro, but in my voice — I’m just trying not to laugh so hard,” says Buntyn of O’Flynn’s final audition, which proved her bona fides for Apple. “What was so great about Kate is that she’s just so low-key with everything.”
“It doesn’t happen very often in my career when somebody like that comes in, and they’re absolutely brilliant,” Jones says of the actress, who was one of several contenders for the part. “The only time it would be Phyllis Smith, who was my associate at the time, on The Office.” (Smith memorably played Phyllis on the comedy and later voiced Sadness in the Inside Out franchise.)
With 19 nominations and a second season in the works, Jones and Buntyn now get to do it all over again — finding new actors and potential breakouts to join Rhys, O’Flynn and fellow series regular nominees Dale Dickey and Stephen Root. But they already know one thing they won’t try to do with the future ensemble.
“I’m going to reject the stunt castings,” Jones says of season two. She worked with casting director Judith Weiner (Family Ties) in her early days, and says Weiner called that approach “Love Boat casting.”
“We still have our favorite, really cool under-the-radar actors who we are thrilled to get, and we’re already getting people saying, ‘Hey, I’m available for season two,’” Jones says. “But it won’t be a stunt. It can’t be.”
Political Animals
Sometimes a show hits with Emmy voters like Widow’s Bay and earns immediate recognition from the Television Academy for its first season; sometimes, as happened with Netflix’s The Diplomat, it takes those voters a little bit to catch up.
Season one of the political thriller received just a single nomination, for star Keri Russell. For season two, Russell was again nominated, as was the show itself in best drama series. But for the third season, The Diplomat more than tripled its nominations haul, landing not just encore bids for Russell and the series itself, but multiple additional acting nominations (including for stars Allison Janney, Rufus Sewell and Bradley Whitford) and the first recognition for casting director Julie Schubert since the show launched.
“There were little tears all down my face,” says Schubert, a former Emmy winner for the first season of House of Cards in 2013, about how she responded to the news. Schubert received four nominations for House of Cards, but her recognition for The Diplomat is her first in a decade.
“It was really cool because I honestly do think that this season deserves it — just on its own merit,” she says. “Because yes, of course, the ensemble that we put together is brilliant. I’m not saying that because I’m an egoist — I’m saying it because it’s actually true. The pieces and the elements that we put together in season three shape it in a different way. The series has moved into different territory.”
Created by Debora Cahn, who previously wrote on The West Wing and Homeland, The Diplomat follows career diplomat Kate Wyler (Russell), who serves as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Conspiracies fly fast and furious in the show — and the third season focused on a global conflict that arises following the death of the president, the swearing-in of the vice president (Janney) and the appointment of Kate’s husband, Hal (Sewell), as the new veep. Whitford was among the new additions to show for its third season, playing the country’s new first gentleman — a part that put him opposite Janney in a significant role for the first time since the pair’s Emmy-winning run on The West Wing.
“He’s so good at what he does. He straddles the fence of comedy and drama in such a full way that I think the show does really brilliantly as well,” Schubert says about Whitford. But there was at least a moment of pause about reuniting him with Janney.
“Can we transcend that relationship they had on The West Wing that everyone loves so much?” Schubert remembers thinking. She feels they did. “I think you have two entirely different characters, but you already knew that their chemistry is going to be really combustible,” she adds. “And so you trust that you are bringing in two incredible actors who have a history, and they’re going to make it singularly their own.”
It’s rare a casting director receives an Emmy nomination for the third season of their show; recent examples in the drama casting category include Breaking Bad (nominated for its final season), The Morning Show (a first-time nominee for its third season) and Slow Horses (which also didn’t break through for casting until its third season). But Schubert is proud to have bucked the trend.
“It just keeps growing in such a beautiful way, finding a new voice and a new approach,” Schubert says of the show. “I’m just super happy that people are finding it now.”
