Supporting actors seize the TV spotlight
Serial character dramas bank on likable co-stars for cable, streaming success
This article contains spoilers for current seasons of American Horror Story: Freak Show, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.
If there’s one thing that the new golden age of television has taught us, it’s that less is not more when it comes to the number of characters featured on a hit series.
Critically acclaimed shows such as American Horror Story, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have blurred the lines between lead and supporting roles while others such as Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad featured supporting characters who were arguably just as, if not more, popular among fans than their leading co-stars.
Simply put, the rise in the popularity of serialized character dramas has seen supporting actors that not only share the spotlight but seize it.
“The reality is that supporting characters are becoming part of the engine of a series,” says Mark Ellis, who, along with his wife Stephanie Morgenstern, created the hit CTV series Flashpoint. “They drive the turns and the story, and they’re why a lot of people tune in each week.”
With U.S. cable networks such as AMC, FX, Showtime and HBO, and streaming services such as Netflix, churning out serial dramas in an arms race to find the next great show, the stakes on the small screen have never been higher, providing a couple of reasons for featuring an abundance of characters.
On one hand, there needs to be enough stories to tell throughout several seasons; on the other, having lots of players gives audience members someone to relate to beyond the central character.
“The Walking Dead’s Daryl, to me, is one of my favourite characters,” says Ellis, “because he started off as a fairly unlikable man with a connection to a despicable brother, but over the course of the series you saw him (become) one of the central characters and part of the moral heartbeat of that show, and I would have never predicted that after I watched the first few episodes.”
The downside is that the abundance of characters also means easy pickings for TV’s ever-increasing body count.
“Whether it’s The Walking Dead or Downton Abbey, we’ve seen how supporting characters can become part of the water-cooler conversation and we’ve seen how quickly the audience has become conditioned to seeing them killed off or meet their end,” says Ellis.
But whether it was watching Kathy Bates’ Ethel Darling take a throwing knife to the head on AHS: Freak Show, the gruesome duel between the Mountain and the Viper on Game of Thrones or any of the many casualties on The Walking Dead, the fact that departed characters perhaps didn’t get as much screen time as others doesn’t lessen the emotion- al impact of their passing. It’s a good thing for a TV writer, however.
“If the format of your show is more action driven and life-and-death stakes, to be blunt, you’re more free to kill them than you are any of the actors who appear on the poster of your show,” says Morgenstern. “To have a really compelling guest character and to not know much about them, and whether or not you can trust them or if they’ll survive the hour, dramatically opens up the possibilities for a writer.”
The role of social media in fostering discussion of shows and characters means TV deaths have never had as much impact as they do today.
According to Nielsen’s Twitter TV ratings, The Walking Dead was the most-tweeted-about show in 2014, averaging 576,000 tweets per episode seen by roughly 4.93 million people. AHS: Freak Show and Game of Thrones ranked fourth and fifth, with 357,000 and 159,000 tweets seen by more than 3.5 million people, respectively.
“You know everyone’s talking about television in social media and everyone likes to talk about their favourite characters,” says Ellis. “Having that depth of characters only helps create more conversations.”
He and Morgenstern have a new show, X Company, premiering on CBC in February. They say the versatility of the serial-drama format is one of the reasons supporting characters can shine.
“The great thing about writing for television is that you’re able to be surprised, and you’re able to think on your feet and change the blueprints when you think you’ve come up with a better design,” explains Ellis.
“You can also afford to give your characters more layers and more secrets and if the first impression they made is of a more upbeat, appealing person then as you get to know them better there’s a lot of darkness underneath that,” says Morgenstern. “We didn’t have as much freedom to explore that when the mandate was a lot more episodic.”
The past 12 months have also seen barriers between movie and TV stars disappear, as big-name Hollywood actors are lured to the small screen by shorter seasons and inventive writing. A big name doesn’t guarantee a big hit, however.
Halle Berry made her TV debut as a series lead in the CBS sci-fi show Extant, but the ratings left much to be desired (although it’s been renewed for a second season). It’s proof that millions won’t flock to their TVs just to watch a Hollywood star.
Shows like Penny Dreadful (with Josh Hartnett, Eva Green, Timothy Dalton and many more) and True Detective (which starred Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson and Michelle Monaghan in its first season) found success with various characters sharing the dramatic burden.
“I think because we’re seeing more character-driven and more serialized stories now, we’re seeing an ascendancy of the supporting character at the same time,” says Ellis.