Right after Allison Janney's name is announced, Stockard Channing leans forward and gives her a kiss. One of the sweetest things ever. I loved the genuine affection between the castmates on The West Wing. And poor Allison, forgetting to mention Martin Sheen!! lol
Allison Janney 100% deserved this award, her submission episode "Access" was fantastic and a real standout. I love Edie as much as anyone, but this one belonged to Janney, who rightfully won. Janney rocks! :)
Alison was incredible on The West Wing, as were all the main cast members. After all this time I still know it to be the best drama ever made. IMHO. I've watched all seasons about 7 times now. Best were 1-4, thanks to Aaron Sorkin.
Then she took those amazing showcase episodes and submitted them and won 4 in a row. That's just one of the plethora of things I love about Aaron Sorkin. He always made Sheen the focus of the show, but he never failed to provide each of the great actors on the show, of whom I think Janney is the best save Sheen, with a brilliant showcase for their amazing talents. Schiff got In Excelsis Deo, Whitford got Noël, Lowe got Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail. The list is long.
It's so much about which episode you submit, and when that episode is about the making of a documentary chronicling you and your job for an entire day (Access) and you're a brilliant actress being your amazing self for essentially the entire thing, you're pretty much going to win. I know Falco is astonishing every time she's on-screen as Carmela, but nobody can top Allison. C.J. is such an amazing character, and Janney won because she had a brilliant showcase or two every season.
@IrishEyes1989 I loved when the First Lady wanted to make a direct appeal, and when she's ambushed by all the reporters and CJ asks them to give her a break, CJ guides her through it, calling her Abbey, inviting her to her office to sit with her for a while. It showed how they were family, and how CJ always felt very protective. Amazing show. I miss it...
@IrishEyes1989 I saw that, too, I was amazed and loved it. I always felt that even tho they didn't do that many scenes together Allison and Stockard had such great chemistry working together!
@Ms14787 Aww, yay! Glad I wasn't the only one to love it! hehe ;) You're absolutely right, Stockard and Allison had fabulous chemistry on the show. One of my favourite scenes of theirs is in the episode "The Fall's Gonna Kill You" when Abbey goes to CJ's office to apologize for not being there when she was told about Jed's MS and CJ confesses having seen Abbey give him an injection years earlier. Brilliant drama, both supremely talented actresses, I adore them.
Obviously Falco is f-ing brilliant as Carmella (which has become an iconic role), but remember that emmy awards are about the episode's submitted, and if you are a fan of Sopranos and West Wing (as I am), you know what the tapes were. Janney had a KILLER tape, was in 90% of it, and I consider C.J Craig to be one of the greatest performance EVER, TV or movies. So, no shock. She deserved it. "Access," while not everyone's fav episode, was an acting tour de force, imo. Go watch it!
This was for season five, when she was still press secretary, and the first season after Sorkin left the show (and Rob Lowe). It's considered the least fav. season for fans (but still better than almost anything else on tv) so that's prob. why the surprise. She deserved it though... Listen, she won 4 emmys b/c she's brilliantly talented, and the role of CJ is probably the hardest role... she had to memorize pages of monologues all the time.
that face at :53/54 is what I love about her. I miss seeing her in a maid outfit with a sad look on her face. I love her much more in dramatic roles than sitcoms or even than WWing. Her best role to date in my opinion is the mother in American Beauty and 2nd best is the mother in Across the Sea. I think she would have been as good if not better than Charlize in Monster.
She deserved every emmy she won!! And for the sad little ppl below who wrote she didn't, you're all wrong, more ppl should watch this "boring" show, at least you'd have a slight idea of how government works..
Probably because The West Wing did not have the best season from 2002-2003 (and 2003-2004 was better but not like in its glory days) and it looks like the other nominees were on shows with stronger seasons.
Yea like isnt that like getting a mid-level award in the real white house and failing to acknowledge the president? I mean he gave her a standing ovation for crying out loud.
Edie Falco was better, but it's not like Allison Janney is so far behind her. Allison might even be second best of the year, "Access" was a really great episode for otherwise such an overrated show. Still though, Edie should have won, but at least Edie still won the year before for "Whitecaps", her best performance on The Sopranos EVER.
at least the west wing is intelligent compared to most of the dribble found on television today...and if you want to call me snobbish, that's fine. i live in rural america and I've watched each episode and I enjoy them all. they are filled with humor and compassion and your comments here are merely the type of ignorance characterized by someone who knows little about television or rational thinking
Why the hell did she invite Mariska Hargitay onto the stage? That was so incredibly awkward and weird. I don't even accept the excuse that Alison wanted everyone to see Mariska's dress just because they were wearing the same color because that's incomprehensible, and it's so rude of her to rub Mariska's face into losing the award. Alison is clearly a person who doesn't seem to be very self-aware, or lucid about her surroundings but, it also confuses me as to why no one else seems to notice what a horrible scene that was.
