2013 Emmy rankings: Why Aaron Paul, Peter Dinklage, and Mandy Patinkin are contenders

Year after year, the Supporting Actor in a Drama series category is one of our favorites at the Emmys. You have a series of super-talented people who embody iconic roles, and there are so many great people who somehow don’t even make the list. Just look at the likes of Vincent Kartheiser, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Alan Cumming, Thomas Sadoski, Robert Carlyle, Ron Perlman, Walton Goggins, and countless other people that we could reference here.

But somehow, even with all of these great nominees and snubs, there are a pair of familiar names sitting at the top of our list of likely winners.

6. Jim Carter, “Downton Abbey” – Out of all of the actors from the British import, we still don’t know why Carter was chosen over Allen Leech, Rob-James Collier, or Brendan Coyle. Mr. Carson didn’t have that much to do last season, which is why we imagine him now on the outside looking in.

5. Bobby Cannavale, “Boardwalk Empire” – He did a great job last season, but it was unfortunately on a show that has lost a lot of buzz in recent years. The only hope he has here of winning is if voters really go outside the box and try to give the trophy to someone different.

4. Jonathan Banks, “Breaking Bad” – We know that this is for last year’s eight episodes, but the problem with the voting process is that you are almost always going to favor recent history. Aaron Paul will probably take most of his votes, and we’re not sure that Mike’s death, in our mind the biggest flaw in the history of this show, will help Banks take home gold.

3. Mandy Patinkin, “Homeland” – Every time that we see a photo of Mandy without a beard these days, we freak out. He almost is Saul, but we don’t mean that to suggest that Mandy can do nothing else. He just brings such gravitas and importance to the role, and he may be the strongest overall performer in the show’s cast.

2. Peter Dinklage, “Game of Thrones” – A former winner, and coming off the show’s best season yet. The only irony is that we actually feel like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was the better choice for what Jaime Lannister went through last season, but you can never rule out Dinklage for what he does with Tyrion.

1. Aaron Paul, “Breaking Bad” – You can copy and paste most of what we said above about Banks. We do not necessarily feel like season 5 gave Aaron that much to do, but his work this summer has been so phenomenal that we just cannot imagine the Emmys ignoring that and snubbing the deserving reigning champ.

Of course, we want to hear from you below! Share your picks for your favorite below, and click here to read every other category that we have covered to this point in our series.

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