Jessica Walter Gets Posthumous Emmy Nomination For ‘Archer’

Late actress Jessica Walter, who died at the age of 80 in March, has received an Emmy nomination for Best Character Voice-Over Performance for her voice-over role of Malory Archer on the FXX animated spy comedy Archer.

Her fellow nominees for the category include Julie Andrews (Bridgerton), Maya Rudolph (Big Mouth), Stacey Abrams (Black-ish), Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), Stanley Tucci (Central Park) and Tituss Burgess (Central Park).

This is the former Arrested Development actress fifth time being nominated for an Emmy. She received her first award for Outstanding Lead Actress for the mini-series Amy Prentiss in 1975. Her Archer character Malory Archer, a foul-mouthed spymaster with a cocktail always in hand and mother of series protagonist Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin), was modeled after her alcoholic Arrested Development character Lucille Bluth.

“I always tried to make her sound as mean and awful as possible, as cutting and acidic as possible, and then count on Jessica Walter’s delivery to still make you love Malory no matter how mean the thing was that she said,” Archer creator Adam Reed said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight last year.

The Emmy Awards air Sunday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and will be hosted by Cedric the Entertainer.