“I had a teacher who used to say when you act, you have to act as if your life depends on it”, he said. “Non-network shows can be edgier, bawdier and take more risks than the major networks can, and the Emmy people want to reward that”.
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“There has been a awful mistake, clearly”, said Hamm, who received a standing ovation from the audience as he accepted his best actor-in-a-drama award.
Hamm, who completed rehab earlier this year for alcohol abuse, lost his mother to colon cancer when he was 10.
Hamm finally scored the Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series after seven previous nominations for the hit show and tripped over on his way up to the stage. Tracy Morgan, the actor-comedian seriously injured past year in a auto accident, made a triumphant return to reveal Game of Thrones the best drama series.
Tambor, 71, won for his role as a father who transitions to a woman, and he dedicated the award-his first Emmy-to the transgender community. It’s impossible to be up here.
On stage, he thanked the writers, his “screen partner” Lena Headey and “everyone else in the cast, which is like thousands of people”.
Backstage at the Emmys, winners are celebrating their successes in different ways.
“Sure, Donald Trump seems racist”, he said. “It’s getting trickier and trickier to satirize this stuff”.
Frances McDormand won as best actress in a limited series, Richard Jenkins won as best actor and Jane Anderson won for her writing.
Modern Family star Sofia Vergara put on a courageous face after her show failed to win a record-breaking sixth Emmy for outstanding comedy series.
Allison Janney found a blast of air conditioning when she came backstage after winning for supporting actress in the comedy series “Mom”.
Instead, the 18,000 voters of the Television Academy threw their support behind the HBO medieval fantasy series Game of Thrones, which was the night’s biggest victor with 12 Emmys.
And “Veep” continued to steamroll its comedy competition, earning Julia Louis Dreyfus her fourth consecutive Outstanding Actress award.
“We don’t have a trans tipping point yet”, she said. The series also took honors for directing, best guest actor in a comedy and for two technical categories.
Jeffrey Tambor repeated his Golden Globes success with an award for outstanding lead actor in a comedy series, for the Amazon series Transparent. After being mocked by friends for not keeping up with popular new series, Samberg locks himself in a bunker and watches nothing but TV for a year until he emerges, hairy and wild-eyed, to annoy everyone around him.
The show’s producers thanked HBO for “believing in dragons”.
‘You can’t win an Emmy for roles that are not there’
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Veep and Game of Thrones were heavy favorites in each of the Comedy and Drama categories, and they definitely cleaned up!
We’re all such a group of dirtbags, it’s really fun that we’re here.
If the sitcom had won, it would have overtaken Frasier as the most successful comedy series in the history of the awards.
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She added: “If it’s been 67 years since and actress of colour has won an Emmy, then there’s certainly been a line and it needs to be acknowledged just like the emperor being naked in the room”. Which was worse – that or the red carpet cam?
