Sabrina's Emmy Picks for Jason and Kimberly

video clip credit to Beyond Reason

There is no doubt that Kimberly McCullough and Jason Thompson work well in many different areas, whether it be humor, drama, or them just being playful and sexy. And it goes without saying that they work well with other actors and bring different aspects in different scenes. Obviously, they are both, respectively, very talented individual actors and should be recognized as such.

But one thing remains clear: Kimberly and Jason as a team constantly knock it out of the park whenever they share scenes together. Whether one of them is doing most of the dialogue while the other is supporting, or when they rapidly exchange words back and forth, these two have a wonderful dynamic as actors.

The scenes from May 22, 2007, definitely highlighted this aspect of their talents. In these scenes, the characters of Patrick and Robin managed to talk about something as normal as living arrangements. Yet, Kimberly and Jason had a way of taking that dialogue, and turn it into something with so much more depth than one would ever guess.

They constantly kept up the pace with each other. They knew exactly when to come in with their own lines and how to execute them, and once again, I have to acknowledge their understanding of their own characters to play those points of view so well in a way that wasn't simply reciting dialogue that they had to memorize. They are wonderful at sharing the spotlight. This episode reminded viewers of how Jason and Kimberly share their scenes together and don't try to overpower each other when it isn't what the scenes call for. There was no feeling that either of them were over-talking the other, they balanced the scenes out in a way where both characters' points of view were expressed strongly, and they added the appropriate aspects, such as humor or hidden drama, into the scenes with their expressions and changes in their voices. They actually made the scenes look so real. They looked like a real couple in a real relationship, talking about realistic things. And while the subject matter wasn't exactly typical soap opera drama, they made it all the more interesting.

Of course, scenes can't be successful on dialogue alone. One of the things that makes them such a great team is the extra points of body language or use of props that they add into their scenes. They weren't just talking like a couple. They looked like a couple. When they disagreed, they were farther apart in the body language. When they were in synch with each other feelings, the body language suggested it. And all the while, during their disagreement, the love was so overwhelmingly obvious between the characters from the looks that they gave each other that the viewers didn't lose sight of the fact that it was there at all. They show us that even though these two characters have the ability to dive each other crazy and often times just disagree on principal, they love each other more than anything. This is an important thing for fans to get from scenes because we as viewers need to see that connection between them, even when they aren't in agreement over something, and Jason and Kimberly delivered as usual.