Richard Jenkins is no stranger to critical acclaim. Over a five-decade career spanning theater, television, and film, he has an Oscar nomination for The Visitor and won an Emmy Award for Olive Kitteridge. Yet, when news broke of his latest Emmy nomination, for his performance in the dark comedy DTF St. Louis that also stars Jason Bateman, David Harbour and Linda Cardellini, the veteran actor admits the news caught him completely off guard.
“I was stunned,” Jenkins reveals. “I mean, Jason and David, they’re extraordinary in this. So that’s what you figure, that’s what’s going to happen. So I was stunned.”
Asked why DTF St. Louis broke through with 13 total nominations, Jenkins points to the full team, beginning with creator Steve Conrad.
“I think it has to do with quality. It has to do with the quality of writing and the directing and the vision of Steve,” Jenkins says. “And there’s just one fabulous performance after the other in this thing.”
The HBO limited series, written and directed by Conrad, centers around a suburban love triangle and the investigation surrounding the mysterious death of a man named Floyd Smernitch (Harbour). Jenkins plays Donoghue Homer, a seasoned police detective assigned to the case.
Over the course of the series, Homer undergoes a quiet transformation, deeply impacted by the victim’s life and the people he touched.
“The police want to find out what happened to Floyd,” Jenkins notes. “But what you see is the power of Floyd, that he affects Homer’s life with Homer never meeting him.”
For Jenkins, the character’s flaw and growth stem directly from his age and experience. “I just love the fact that this guy is confused and he’s been doing this so long,” Jenkins explains. “The longer you live, the more you think you know. And that’s dangerous because you probably don’t know as much as you think you do … a lot of the times you’re wrong. Here’s a guy that’s done this his whole life. He’s good at it, he thinks he’s good at it, and he’s got it figured out, and he couldn’t be more wrong. But he changes.”
Working on set with co-stars Joy Sunday, Cardellini, and Bateman, Jenkins found the process uniquely rewarding. He recalls filming his and Sunday’s final scene together on the very first day of production. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ve done it before, last scenes first, but they’re no fun,'” Jenkins shares. “It was naked. It was two people who didn’t really know each other. But we just did it and listened to each other, talked to each other, laughed at each other. And it really cemented our relationship for the rest of the show.”
