Linda Cardellini is nothing but smiles after earning an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or TV Movie for her turn as Carol Love-Smernitch in the dark dramedy crime series DTF St. Louis.
The recognition capped off a celebratory morning for the cast, who wasted little time jumping into a group text after the nominations were announced. “We’re all on text together and we’re all just so excited and happy for each other,” Cardellini told Deadline. “It’s really beautiful how many nominations the show got and that we’re all able to share that together. It’s really incredibly special.”
For Cardellini, the show’s success comes down to something much quieter than its central murder mystery. Beneath its offbeat humor and twists, she believes DTF St. Louis resonates because it’s ultimately about people searching for connection.
“I think there’s such a beautiful humanity to the show and there’s this idea of loss of intimacy and these people looking for it,” she said. “It starts with something that you think is big, like a murder, but it’s really truly about the much smaller moments and the connections and the connections lost between the people.”
That same complexity is what drew her to Carol, a woman whose guarded nature keeps audiences guessing until the very end. Rather than making her emotions obvious, Cardellini leaned into the character’s restraint.
“She doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve at all. You don’t know what she’s thinking or feeling,” she said. “Her silence or her inability to let people in allows for the audience to play chess with the script and try to figure out what the next move is.”
Off camera, though, the mood wasn’t always so serious. Cardellini laughed while recalling a deleted scene with Jason Bateman and David Harbour that found the three actors embracing in their underwear after an emotional sequence.”It was beautiful and also very heartwrenching,” she said. “But then, when we finished shooting the scene, we would look around and see all of us adults standing around in our underwear, and we would just laugh because it was hilarious [juxtaposition].”
Soon, Cardellini will be looking ahead to her next transformation as she steps into the role of Pamela Voorhees in Peacock’s Crystal Lake, which aims to explore the horror icon that audiences have hardly scratched the surface of.
“She’s important to the series, but sort of unexplored,” Cardellini said of the Friday the 13th matriarch. “So I thought that would be really, really fun, to do something I’d never done.” She added that showrunner Brad Caleb Kane “has made sort of this mixtape of all the things that he would love to see happen for her. It goes all over the place for her character and it’s really fun.”
In addition to snagging a nomination for Outstanding Limited Series, DTF St. Louis also earned acting nominations for Jason Bateman, David Harbour, Richard Jenkins and Joy Sunday.
The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Mariska Hargitay, will be held at the Peacock Theater on September 14, 2026 at 5 P.M. PT/ 8 P.M. ET.
