Give Jharrel Jerome an Emmy for ‘When They See Us,’ Please

The 2019 Emmy Awards are a little less than a week away, and you know what that means: It’s time for me to yell at the Television Academy to give Jharrel Jerome the Emmy for Best Lead Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie for When They See Us, or else.

If you missed When They See Us, Ava DuVernay’s haunting four-part limited series, the good news is it’s on Netflix and you have the ability to call in sick to work. The drama is a retelling of the true story of the Central Park Five (or the Exonerated Five, as they prefer to be called) aka, five black and Latino teens who were wrongfully convicted of raping a white woman in 1989. It’s not an easy watch, but it is an essential one: All five boys—Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, and Kevin Richardson—served at least six years in prison after police coerced them into confessing to a crime, it was later proven via DNA evidence, they did not commit. Wise, who was the oldest at the time at 16, was the only one tried as an adult and served the longest sentence: 13 years.

That’s who Jerome, a 21-year-old actor from the Bronx, played in When They See Us. DuVernay tells the heartbreaking story in two parts: When the boys were arrested as young teenagers, and when they were finally exonerated, as men. Of the talented cast in the Netflix series, Jerome was the only lead who played both the teen and adult version of his role. Not only that, but the final 88-minute episode of the series is dedicated to Wise’s sentence. Nearly every excruciating, traumatic scene is Jerome’s to carry, sometimes with no other actors present at all. And Jerome absolutely nailed it. Anyone who finished the series could see that he gave it his all, fully embracing the slow deterioration of Wise’s mental state, as the boy-turned-man endured year after year of inhumane treatment. It’s a performance that is nothing short of breathtaking.

Interviews with Jerome confirm his absolute commitment to embodying Wise, who the actor spoke with extensively and who he now considers a friend. In Netflix’s follow up Oprah Winfrey-hosted special, Oprah Winfrey Presents: When They See Us Now, in which the producer interviewed both the cast and the real men who inspired the series, Jerome described an “intense, multi-step process” of learning how to speak, move, and feel like Wise.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done or allowed myself to do, to get into that emotion and get into that mentality,” Jerome told Winfrey. “It started with the voice for me. I did two months with a vocal coach just learning how to speak like Korey. […] It was the first time I ever felt like I stepped out of my body and stepped into somebody else’s.”

Though he may have worked harder than anyone else this year, Jerome is not a big, established name like fellow nominees Mahershala Ali, Jared Harris, Sam Rockwell, Benicio del Toro, and Hugh Grant (nominated for True Detective, Chernobyl, Fosse/Verdon, Escape at Dannemora, and A Very English Scandal, respectively). But luckily, thanks to the buzz around the series and his performance, he’s still holding his own as a potential frontrunner for the award. And truly, he deserves it. It’s not as if Jerome is a talent appearing out of nowhere, either: In 2016 he delivered a magnetic performance in Best Picture winner Moonlight, as the teenage version of Andre Holland’s character, Kevin, a role that, had there not been so many other excellent supporting roles in the film, might have earned him an Oscar nod. But instead, the award that year went, deservedly, to co-star Ali. Now Ali and Jerome are competing for the Lead Actor in a Limited Series Emmy, and while I’m sure both would be happy for the other’s success, it really does feel like Jerome’s earned this one.

And much love to Harris, who absolutely deserves recognition for the amazing work in TV he’s done for many years, and who killed it in HBO’s surprise breakout hit this year, Chernobyl. But if this is the year Harris snags an Emmy, I’ll be forced to assume that the members of the Television Academy binged Chernobyl immediately, but neglected to hit play on the final episode of When They See Us. *Insert shrugging emoji here.*

Watch When They See Us on Netflix