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The Best Actor on TV Is Better Call Saul’s Michael McKean

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Vulture’s  fourth annual TV Awards  honor the best in television from the past year in three major categories:  Show , Actor, and  Actress . The shows that were considered had to be ongoing, which disqualifies limited series and series that ended their runs in the past year. They also must have premiered before June 25, 2017. Michael McKean’s portrayal of the complicated, maddening, ultimately tragic Chuck McGill on  Better Call Saul  is outstanding on its own merits. But when one considers that McKean is primarily known for his work in comedy — as, among others, gentle, greasy goofball Lenny Kosnowski on  Laverne & Shirley  and frustrated aging rocker David St. Hubbins in  This Is Spinal Tap  — his transformation into Chuck rises to another level. On  Better Call Saul , a man we primarily associate with laughter fully transforms into a control freak with a broken mind who is as allergic to humor as he (allegedly) is to electromagnetism. Despite the fact that he has tackled dra
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The 10 Best Actors of the Year

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Daniel Kaluuya Film: Get Out Photo Credit Universal Pictures The shot from Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” that probably pops into your head first — it was in the trailers and will no doubt feature in the Oscar reel — is of Daniel Kaluuya in close-up, his eyes open wide and overflowing with tears. It’s a pivotal moment, for sure, both in the plot and in Kaluuya’s performance: the big reveal and the first big emotional payoff. But it’s also a confirmation of the importance of those eyes to the structure and meaning of the film. They are perhaps its only reliable barometers of emotion, instruments of empathy and windows on the truth. Chris Washington, Kaluuya’s character, is a photographer. According to a movie convention going back at least to “Rear Window,” this makes him a bit of a voyeur and also suggests a certain detachment from experience. He’s a watcher more than a doer, at risk of seeing too much. And “Get Out,” in every way, is about seeing and being seen, about Chris’s
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