Jeffrey Tambor wins Critics’ Choice Best Actor for Transparent
Jeffrey Tambor, who plays the main character in the Amazon show ‘Transparent’, has been honoured with the Critics’ Choice award for Best Actor.
Transparent, the TV show about a trans woman coming out late in life was nominated for four awards.
The show won the Golden Globe for Best Television Show in January. The show’s writer and producer Jill Soloway dedicated the programme to trans teen Leelah Alcorn, who took her own life last year.
Show creator Jill Soloway – who says Tambor’s character is partly based on her own trans parent – spoke about how the show apparently helped recently-out former Olympian Bruce Jenner.
She told People: “I met Kim Kardashian and she told me they all watched it and loved it. I know Bruce watched it.
“Knowing that Transparent helped Bruce to see a family where somebody came out and everybody survived, my first phone call was to my parent to say, ‘Look what your bravery did. Your bravery allowed me to tell this story. And this story allowed this person to come out.
“This person who is an American hero, and who is now an American hero for the second time. And who happens to be the patriarch of the most famous family on the planet.'”
In February, Ms Soloway had to apologise for making a joke about Jenner, who was not out at the time.
Last month, Tambor spoke about the scene when his character came out as trans. He said he was “throw-up nervous”, and that he was thinking: “I need to do it correctly for the [transgender] community, because lives are at stake.”
Fellow ‘Transparent’ star Amy Landecker last year addressed “frustration” with the casting of Tambor as a transgender woman.
