is Emmy nominated this year for playing the titular antihero on the Netflix miniseries . But this isn’t the Irish actor’s first rodeo playing a murderous trickster. In 2010, he debuted on the BBC/Masterpiece Theatre’s as Jim Moriarty, the archnemesis and unhinged counterpart to the world’s most famous detective (played by Benedict Cumberbatch).
Moriarty toyed with Sherlock, sending him on a life-or-death crime-solving scavenger hunt across London before nearly blowing up him and John Watson at a pool, then entangling the sleuth in an attempted theft of the Crown Jewels. All the while, Scott’s performance veered unpredictably from calm and composed to uncontrolled screams — in keeping with his character’s madness. And the roller-coaster storyline wasn’t over with 2012’s climactic season-two finale “The Reichenbach Fall,” where Moriarty shot himself in the head as part of a scheme to blackmail Sherlock into jumping to his death to save his friends.
‘s review of season three noted that fans awaited the cliffhanger’s resolution with a “kids-on-Christmas-like anticipation” and added: “It does not disappoint.” That season’s finale equally shocked audiences when Moriarty — who was presumed dead — popped up on screens across England taunting, “Did you miss me?” After , which won nine Emmys in limited series or movie categories, Scott’s roles have moved beyond the villainy that first made him famous. The actor said on a recent Roundtable that’s how he wanted it, noting, “It always seemed what’s of value is to be able to play as many different notes as you could.
” So for every fan whose Andrew Scott touchstone is Moriarty, there’s another who knows him as ‘s “hot priest,” or perhaps as the rideshare driver grieving the death of his wife in ‘s “Smithereens” episode (for which he earned his first Emmy nom), or as the lead in the 2023 feature , or as Tom Ripley. It’s good that he’s kept busy — otherwise we might have missed him. THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood Reporter.
