{"id":896927,"date":"2026-09-15T18:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T18:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/896927\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T18:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T18:16:11","slug":"matthew-rhys-makes-emmys-history-wins-two-lead-actor-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/896927\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Rhys makes Emmys history, wins two lead actor awards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s something in the fog \u2014 it\u2019s Emmys history for Matthew Rhys<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The \u201cWidow\u2019s Bay<\/a>\u201d star won the award for lead actor in a comedy series at the 78th Emmy Awards on Monday. This follows Rhys\u2019 win earlier in the evening for lead actor in a limited or anthology series for his work in \u201cThe Beast in Me<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his two latest wins, Rhys is the first performer to ever win a lead acting Emmy for drama, comedy and limited series. <\/p>\n

\u201cStephen Root is right that this is purely because of the depraved and twisted mind of [\u2018Widow\u2019s Bay\u201d creator] Katie Dippold,\u201d said Rhys as he accepted the comedy actor award. \u201cHer genius really does live in the recesses of her disturbed brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Apple TV horror-comedy \u201cWidow\u2019s Bay,\u201d Rhys portrays Tom Loftis, a devoted single dad and the mayor of a cursed New England island town who is desperately trying to boost its tourism despite the supernatural hurdles. <\/p>\n

His character in Netflix\u2019s eight-part crime thriller, meanwhile, is cut from a different cloth. Rhys plays Nile Jarvis, the menacing and manipulative real estate scion suspected of murdering his first wife. The series sees Jarvis go t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate with his neighbor Aggie Wiggs (Claire Danes), a grieving mother and struggling author who is convinced to make him the subject of her next book. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a beautiful holy trinity of scribes in the glorious form of Daniel Pearle, Gabe Rotter and the inimitable Howard Gordon, who really brought up the beast in all of us,\u201d Rhys said as he accepted the award for limited series actor. \u201cWe were guided so beautifully by Antonio Campos, but certainly led ferociously, fiercely, fervently by the incredible Claire Danes. Thank you for letting me join the mystery machine and bringing out the beast. You are an intimidating scene partner, but I\u2019m very grateful for for all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Welsh actor told The Times<\/a> in July that playing the harried mayor was \u201cexhausting\u201d in a way that playing Jarvis wasn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

\u201cI always spent the end of the day on \u2018Widow\u2019s Bay\u2019 going, \u2018My God, I\u2019m exhausted\u2019 \u2014 because you\u2019re just vibrating on a higher level with Tom,\u201d Rhys said. \u201cIt\u2019s always like, \u2018Listen, please!\u2019 The pitch is always higher; you\u2019re always like, \u2018You\u2019ve got to listen to me!\u2019 Or if you\u2019re terrified, you\u2019re just hyperventilating.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rhys also previously said the \u201cbig draw\u201d of \u201cThe Beast in Me<\/a>\u201d was the dynamic between Jarvis and Wiggs. <\/p>\n

\u201c[T]hese two people … they\u2019re like two magnets in a way,\u201d he told the Envelope podcast<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019re so drawn, they are so repulsed, they\u2019re kind of images of each other\u2019s shadow self. They see so much of each other while [being] polarizingly different. That to me was part of the great draw of that piece, with these two people and how they connected or seemingly didn\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n

Rhys won for lead actor in a drama series in 2018 for his work on FX\u2019s espionage thriller \u201cThe Americans.\u201d It was his first win for the role after also being nominated in 2017 and 2016. Rhys was also nominated for drama lead actor in 2021 for his performance as Perry Mason in the HBO reboot and for comedy guest actor in 2017 for his performance as Chuck Palmer in \u201cGirls.\u201d <\/p>\n

The other nominees for lead actor in a comedy series were Yahya Abdul-Mateen II<\/a> of Disney+\u2018s \u201cWonder Man<\/a>,\u201d Steve Carell<\/a> of HBO\u2019s \u201cRooster,\u201d Jason Segel<\/a> of Apple TV\u2019s \u201cShrinking\u201d and Martin Short<\/a> of Hulu\u2019s \u201cOnly Murders in the Building.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s something in the fog \u2014 it\u2019s Emmys history for Matthew Rhys. The \u201cWidow\u2019s Bay\u201d star won the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[15322,136514,49,48,361,1318,75,53340,310479,143343,74561,1316,310480,171,7467,721,1317,3305,5368],"class_list":["post-896927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-americans","tag-beast","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-emmy","tag-entertainment","tag-first-win","tag-lead-actor","tag-limited-series","tag-matthew-rhys","tag-netflix","tag-nile-jarvis","tag-people","tag-performance","tag-series","tag-show","tag-star","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}