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The Golden Globes Just Gave You Two More Reasons to Binge Bodyguard on Netflix
The Richard Madden thriller just scored two Golden Globe nominations
There are two types of people in the world: those who got thrilled when they saw Bodyguard pop up during Thursday's Golden Globe nominations and those who said, "WTF is Bodyguard?"
The twisty thriller scored two nominations: Best TV Drama and Best Actor in a TV Drama for star Richard Madden, who you probably know as OG King in the North Robb Stark. Since his time on Game of Thrones, Madden's career has meandered a bit but he never really managed to break through in anything (shoutout to Cinderella), but in Bodyguard Madden finally found a vehicle worthy of his talents -- talents that most of us didn't even know he had, to be perfectly honest.
Madden stars as Police Sergeant David Budd, a veteran suffering from PTSD who is assigned as the personal protection officer for Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes). Julia's controversial politics go against everything David believes in, and as a terrorist plot unfolds throughout the fast-paced series, you're left unclear whether or not David has played a part in it until the very end.
The BBC series, which aired as a Netflix original in the States, is a thrilling addiction. And with only six, hour-long episodes, it makes for a perfect holiday binge ahead of the Globes. We do recommend watching before the ceremony airs in January because the Globes absolutely loves new shows, maybe because they get easily distracted by shiny, new things or maybe it's because they genuinely appreciate awarding fresh ideas and up-and-coming talent.
We may never know why the Globes are the way they are, but we do know that this means Bodyguard actually stands a decent chance at taking home one of these trophies. In the acting category, Madden is up against Jason Bateman (Ozark), Stephan James (Homecoming), Billy Porter (Pose) and Matthew Rhys (The Americans). The Best TV Drama category is equally stacked, with Bodyguard facing off against The Americans, Homecoming, Pose and Killing Eve.
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While you may look at this lineup and think this little-known Netflix show stands no chance, the drama broke viewing records in the U.K., becoming the most-watched drama on record. (They only have records dating back to 2002, but this is still a huge achievement.) The series finale was seen by 15.9 million people in the U.K., per the 28-day consolidated numbers, and the iPlayer requests were at 38 million as of October. For comparison, Game of Thrones' midseason finale was seen by 16.5 million people night of. What we're trying to make clear here is that Bodyguard is a huge, global hit, which seems right up The Hollywood Foreign Press Association's alley.
We won't know, of course, if Bodyguard will manage to score a statue for Best TV Drama or Best TV Drama Actor for another few weeks, but we do know that if there was an award for Best Dramatic Zoom they would win in a heartbeat.