Embracing the dark side of their roles

JAMES SPADER took home his second consecutive Emmy for best dramatic actor on Sunday for the role of Alan Shore, a shockingly unscrupulous lawyer on ABC’s darkly comic “Boston Legal.” But the first thing he did was thank his mother -- twice -- to make up for not having done so last year.

“She really hasn’t complained at all,” Spader said later backstage. “When I got off the stage last year, I called her right away because I realized. But I never should have said a damn thing because she hadn’t noticed. Then of course, after I told her, it’s come back a few times.”

In contrast with that sweet gesture, Spader’s character is emblematic of this year’s other best actor nominees, who were far from the usual hero type: a brutal, profane saloonkeeper; a misanthropic, drug-addicted doctor; and a guilt-ridden, dissociative psychiatrist. Even the rogue terrorist hunter was depressed.

The complicated nature of the characters no doubt added to the overall luster of dramas in contention this year at the Emmys, which in recent years have been dominated by a wealth of strong comedy series.

Though the characters may have fascinated audiences, they were often so complex, sadistic or morally compromised it was hard to tell: Do you love to hate them, or hate to love them?

In “Boston Legal,” Spader, 45, plays Shore, a high-priced, conscience-free civil litigator with a history of embezzlement and office liaisons. Laconic, imperious and perverse, Shore displays a lack of ethics that, though occasionally used for good, provides a constant source of shock to co-workers. About to start its second season Sept. 28 and switched from Sundays to Tuesdays, “Boston Legal” was spun off from “The Practice.” Spader won an Emmy last year for playing Shore on that show.

The actor called the transition “a nightmare.”

“It was very difficult for everyone involved,” he said. “This character Alan Shore was conceived of as a destructive force. Then they had to figure out how to construct the show with just that.”

The other contenders in the dramatic actor category were also case studies of the antihero.

HBO’s “Deadwood” offers a particularly brutish view of life in an 1870s gold mining camp before law and order prevailed. Death, squalor, foul language and historical characters figure prominently in each episode. English actor Ian McShane, 62, won a Golden Globe this year for his portrayal of the evil Al Swearengen, the town’s most powerful man, a saloonkeeper, murderer and pimp. Produced by David Milch (“NYPD Blue” and “Hill Street Blues”), “Deadwood” has been renewed for a third season.

In Fox’s medical drama “House,” the teaching hospital is a place to avoid for anyone looking for care or compassion. British actor Hugh Laurie, 46, won the Television Critics Assn. award this year for best actor as Dr. Gregory House, a limping, angry, brilliant doctor who dislikes his patients and puts down his co-workers while diagnosing mysterious diseases. He has a penchant for painkillers, booze and maybe his now-married ex-girlfriend. The show is in its second season.

Also in its second season, Showtime’s “Huff” centers on tired midlife psychiatrist Craig Huffstodt, a nice, smart, introspective guy so burdened with moral dilemmas and family issues that he appears to hallucinate. Huff is played by Hank Azaria, 41, who also serves as one of the show’s producers. For help, he turns to his best friend, a libidinous drug-addled lawyer, and his brother, a mental patient.

After four seasons, Kiefer Sutherland is well known as agent Jack Bauer on “24,” Fox’s frenetic and tense counterterrorism show set in a single 24-hour time period. He carries the weight of the world on his own slim shoulders, dealing on a routine basis with assassinations, torture, nuclear explosions, biological weaponry, corruption, deceit and poisonous office politics.

As the relentlessly grim Bauer, Sutherland, 38, has won a Golden Globe and has been nominated three previous times for an outstanding lead actor Emmy. He also was twice nominated as a producer for the show.