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Last fall, when I realized that Keri Russell and Claire Danes both had Netflix TV shows coming up (a new season of Russell's The Diplomat, the debut of Danes' miniseries The Beast in Me), that Danes was co-starring with Russell's partner Matthew Rhys (a role that would win him another Emmy), and that the two women's careers had a lot in common, a question occurred to me: How would each of them do playing one of the other's signature roles?
Alan Sepinwall
From that idle thought, an occasional series of bonus content was born. It's been a minute since I did the second one (pairing actors from ER and/or Grey's Anatomy with their peers). But as we get back into the fall TV season — and as Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, two of the subjects of the first If They Swapped Roles?, reunite this week for an Apple TV show called Brothers — I wanted to try a fresh round of matchups. This time, we start off with one inspired in part by the aforementioned Keri Russell.
What if Rhea Seehorn was Nora Durst and Carrie Coon was Kim Wexler?
Alan Sepinwall
Last Monday night, Rhea Seehorn, Carrie Coon, and Keri Russell were all competing each other for the drama lead actress Emmy. Judged based on their current work on, respectively, Pluribus, The Gilded Age, and The Diplomat, I had to give Seehorn a slight edge, though the other two are wonderful. But when I factored in their prior work in 2010s dramas — respectively, Better Call Saul, The Leftovers, and The Americans — that somehow didn't win any of them an Emmy, I found myself more torn. I'm thrilled Rhea finally has an Emmy, and hoping Coon and Russell can get off the schneid over the next couple of years, in whatever order.
And since I already did a matchup between Russell and Danes (who at least has prior Emmys for Homeland, even if she didn't win for The Beast In Me), might as well pit Seehorn and Coon against each other.