Kyra Sedgwick has a perfect award-nomination record for her time on “The Closer.” The series premiered on TNT in 2005, and she’s been nominated for an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award every year since.

So after a while, it must become routine to be nominated yet again, right?

“No. It really doesn’t,” Sedgwick tells Zap2it. She’s currently working on the final season of “The Closer,” which premieres July 11, and is a pretty good bet to be an Emmy nominee for the sixth time three days later. (She won the award for outstanding actress in a drama last year.)

“I almost feel like, Oh, I think I’m going to be really crushed if I don’t get nominated,” Sedgwick says with a laugh. “… For me, it’s validation of continued good work, and that’s always been my goal as an actor, is just to do consistently good work. So it’s lovely, and I never take it for granted. There’s so much good work out there, and so many great actresses doing awesome stuff.”

Sedgwick chose the Season 6 episode “War Zone” as her nomination submission this year. It’s a key episode in the life of the series — and will figure heavily in the forthcoming season — and also one that she says is “really cool.”

“It’s one where [her character, Brenda Leigh Johnson] basically sets up a gang member to be killed by his fellow members,” she says. “I don’t cry in the episode [laughs], which I did in the one I won for. … I just thought it was a super-strong episode for everybody and for me, and really well-written.”

Sedgwick will find out if her submission pays off when the Emmy nominations are announced on July 14.

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But the race is Margulies’ and Sedgwick’s to lose, so let’s analyze why Margulies lost in 2010. “Basically, Julianna Margulies blew it last year by giving Emmy judges the wrong episode,” Emmyologist Tom O’Neil of GoldDerby tells THR. “She submitted ‘Threesome,’ in which she has a nice little confrontation with her cheating hubby, but she might have won if she’d submitted the pilot, a much stronger episode.”

“Boomer [pundit Chris "Boomer" Beachum] and I made a boneheaded call thinking Margulies might somehow surmount this poor submission and win,” adds O’Neil. “We knew that Sedgwick had the episode submission with the most emotional fireworks, but Margulies had swept the precursor awards.” This year, Margulies won SAG, which nommed Sedgwick, and Globes gave both actresses noms, not wins.

Sedgwick’s Emmy-winning episode out-cried her rival’s. “Well, it was kind of an obvious choice,” Sedgwick tells THR.

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‘THE CLOSER’: EXPECT ‘FIREWORKS’ BETWEEN BRENDA AND POPE
It’s going to be a rocky season for Brenda Lee on The Closer. With a lawsuit threatening her career and reputation in the first episode back, the pressure is on. But her career isn’t the only thing being put to the test this year, according to creator James Duff. “I think you can expect fireworks eventually between Brenda and Pope. If there’s a relationship that will be tested, this is it,” he says. “That protective relationship that they’ve both had with each other, when it’s convenient, is going to come under heavy fire.”

Episode 2 is particularly trying for Pope. “He kind almost doesn’t get to episode 2. His career has a near-death experience,” Duff teases. “How he escapes his fate will shock you.”

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“Honestly, I really just want them to be happy,” Sedgwick tells Zap2it. “It is difficult being in this business, knowing how hard it is even when you’re successful. The hurt, the rejection, the insecurity of thinking you’re never going to work again … I don’t want that for my kids.

“I want them to have perfect lives. The fact is that even though you know you grow from pain, you don’t ever want your children to have a bad day. It’s hard for me to be objective, and I would love for them to do something that’s easier on their self-esteem and ego.”

Still, Sedgwick adds, “No one could have told me not to be an actress. I mean, forget about it; there was no way I was going to do anything else. If they’re going to be actors, they’re going to be actors, and I’ll support them and love them just as much. But it’s true, I’d rather they do something else.”

That said, Sedgwick wouldn’t be surprised if Duff offered Sosie a regular role on “Major Crimes,” the Mary McDonnell-starring “Closer” spinoff slated to begin right after the parent show ends with six final episodes next summer.

“James loves Sosie so much,” Sedgwick says. “He’d wanted her to write her into ‘The Closer’ from the time she was 12. When she was 17, I said, ‘Well, let’s talk about it as a family first. Let me discuss it with Kevin.’ And he went behind my back and spoke to Sosie about it, and she said, ‘I want to do it.’ By then, there was no turning back.”

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Revenge of the Nerds and Moonlighting star Curtis Armstrong has landed a multi-episode arc on The Closer’s seventh and final season, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.

Armstrong will play Peter Goldman, a resourceful attorney hired by the mother of a slain gang member to sue Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) and the Los Angeles Police Department. As we first reported, the character is smart, fearless and devious; he makes a natural sparring partner for Brenda.

“He’s going after her, the city and the department,” creator James Duff tells TVGuide.com. “He is a wily attorney who’s made a profession of suing the police. … [He] shows up every time someone gets shot and files papers. He would say he’s a necessary part of the justice system — he’s making the police justify their tactics and holding them to the standards our constitution demands.”

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