Smack in the middle of the two-week voting window for the Primetime Emmy nominations, HBO held a sold-out FYC screening of the penultimate episode of its flagship drama series, reigning Emmy champ Game of Thrones, for TV Academy members with intro by co-creator D.B. Weiss and director Miguel Sapochnik. Each of the top choices on Goldderby.com, a website where experts post odds on awards show nominations and wins, received nominations in the categories of best comedy and drama. The HBO series is facing off FX’s “The Americans”, AMC’s “Better Call Saul”, PBS’ “Downton Abbey”, Showtime’s “Homeland”, Netflix’s “House of Cards” and USA’s “Mr. Robot”.
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Five-time best comedy victor Modern Family was once again nominated – it is now tied with Frasier for the show with the most titles in the category.
A total of 21 acting noms went to non-white performers, including last year’s drama actress victor Viola Davis for ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder, Taraji P. Henson for FOX’s Empire, Keegan-Michael Key for Comedy Central’s Key & Peele, Andre Braugher for Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Tituss Burgess for Kimmy Schmidt, Niecy Nash for Getting On and Cuba Gooding, Jr. As for the show’s second nomination, Stunt Coordinator Philip J. Silvera is nominated for Outstanding Stunt Coordination For A Drama Series, Limited Series Or Movie and will go head-to-head with stunt coordinators from Gotham, Game of Thrones, The Blacklist, and Rush Hour.
Veteran actor Max von Sydow also received an Emmy nomination in the Oustanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series prize for his performance as the Three-eyed raven. But the final season of The Good Wife was not recognized, and star Julianna Margulies also was snubbed.
Overall, HBO still dominates the pack with 94 nominations after grabbing a record 126 a year ago.
It’s a category that’s crowded with British talent – Idris Elba is in there for Luther, and Benedict Cumberbatch has been nominated for Sherlock.
NBC also secured two digital nominations for “Jay Leno’s Garage” in Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series and “Saturday Night Live Interactive Experience” in Outstanding Interactive Program. Ansari, who also landed a lead actor and a directing nomination, has been outspoken this year, lobbing criticisms at CBS for the network’s lack of diversity and at Trump for his negative comments about Mexicans and Muslims.
In a phone interview, Paulson said that despite joy over her recognition she was happiest to learn that Brown was nominated for his portrayal of Darden.
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Elsewhere, I’m glad Louie Anderson got nominated for the otherwise forgettable comedy Baskets, and that Bokeem Woodbine joined some of his more famous co-stars in Fargo. Find out during the 68th Annual Emmy Awards airing Sunday, September 18 at 7/6c on ABC!
