Innholdsfortegnelse for Awards Special, 29B August 16, 2021 i The Hollywood Reporter

HBO’s emotionally gutting coming-of-age drama My Brilliant Friend, based on the best-selling novels by Italian author Elena Ferrante, is currently one of the best TV series on air, period. The post-World War II Naples-set drama, now in production on its third season, tells the story of two friends who grow from impoverished young girls during the 1950s to restless elderly women at the turn of the 20th century. The two are constantly pulled apart and smashed together again, constrained by their class, gender, geography and violent neighborhood culture. My Brilliant Friend soars in part thanks to linguistic naturalism: The story marinates in the native vernaculars of its setting, including Neapolitan and Italian, and would have lost both its authenticity and lyricism if showrunner Saverio Costanzo had chosen to film it…

There’s no precedent for a show like Bridgerton winning an Emmy because there haven’t been many shows like Bridgerton. Part Regency drama, part soap opera, part highbrow bodice ripper, it is something entirely unto itself. The pedigree of power producer Shonda Rhimes and its status as Netflix’s most watched original series, however, make it impossible to ignore. Still, if Emmy voters are looking across the pond for best drama, they’re probably eyeing The Crown.…

The Handmaid’s Tale executive producer Bruce Miller found himself facing two daunting challenges at the beginning of the acclaimed series’ fourth season. The first was a major sea change in the narrative that involved removing the central character, June, from Gilead — the oppressive dystopia, by now well-established in the series, that had been created by book author Margaret Atwood — and capping it all with a critical moment of vengeance. The second challenge was that despite the fact that filming on the carefully planned season already had commenced, the global pandemic required first a major pause and then an exhaustive overhaul of storylines to accommodate the practical restrictions. “There was a lot of changing the story around because we just didn’t have access to the human beings we had…

In 2019, Disney+’s The Mandalorian came out of nowhere to deliver the breakout character of the year in Baby Yoda, aka The Child. Expectations were sky-high for its sophomore season, and the series met the incredible anticipation by bringing back fan-favorite character Boba Fett, revealing the child’s name (Grogu!) and delivering an unexpected cameo in its final moments: Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker — leaving die-hard fans salivating for what Luke’s role will look like in season three. (The second season also set up multiple spinoff series, centering on characters like Boba Fett and Ahsoka Tano — there’s much more to come.) For the second year in a row, Giancarlo Esposito turned in a lauded performance as big bad Moff Gideon, graduating from the guest actor category and this year…

Ending after just three seasons, Pose hasn’t been around long enough to develop an informative Emmy track record. Billy Porter nabbed a lead actor win for the first season, but season two went largely unnoticed by voters. In season three, its best drama nomination — and a historic mention for lead actress Mj Rodriguez — could reap a swan-song win. That would be an unexpected turn of events, albeit not a total surprise given the drama’s legacy of inclusion and sustained industry affection.…

VARIETY SPECIAL (PRERECORDED) 8:46 – DAVE CHAPPELLE Netflix Chappelle, a four-time Emmy winner, put together this no-frills special — which features more social commentary than jokes — in the immediate aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd (whose neck was knelt on for eight minutes and 46 seconds). Shot outdoors in Ohio under the direction of American Factory Oscar winners Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, it runs 27 minutes (the shortest nominee in the category) and originally ran on Netflix’s YouTube channel, where it went viral. Rated 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, it also garnered directing and writing noms for Chappelle. BO BURNHAM: INSIDE Netflix This 87-minute pandemic project by Burnham — a YouTube sensation turned indie filmmaker (Eighth Grade) — dropped May 30, more recently than any other nominee…

For the five Emmy acting nominees in Lovecraft Country’s cast — Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett, Michael K. Williams, Aunjanue Ellis and Courtney B. Vance — the TV Academy’s honors must have been bittersweet, as they came on the heels of HBO’s announcement that it had canceled the series. That surely was true for creator and showrunner Misha Green, also an Emmy nominee for adapting Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel for the screen. Using the supernatural aesthetic of H.P. Lovecraft as the springboard for an examination of America’s white supremacist history, Lovecraft Country was a handsomely shot period piece that delivered plenty of scares and gore. Throughout the 10-part series, one had to wonder what was more dangerous: the monsters its heroes must battle, or their fellow humans. Its premature cancellation might…

Tying The Crown as the most nominated project at this year’s Emmys, The Mandalorian is an impressive contender, but its chances are somewhat diminished by the fact that it’s still about a dude who never takes off his mask. So, despite all of that Baby Yoda-bonding, Jon Favreau’s Star Wars drama is probably still too far out there for Emmy voters to be swayed by anything more than its significant technical feats. Expect a strong showing at the Creative Arts nights, but probably not much more.…

It was a challenging year,” says This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman with no small degree of understatement, reflecting on making the series’ fifth season, which led to six Emmy nominations, including the show’s fourth nom for outstanding drama series. Not only did the much-beloved series face the daunting prospect of resuming production several months into the onslaught of COVID-19, but Fogelman was expecting his first child at the time. “I had three castmembers who were having a baby in the midst of [the] pandemic — I had a lead actress who was pregnant, and I was worried about making sure everything went well and safely,” he tells THR. Fogelman said there also were several “sleepless nights” of wrestling with whether to address the extraordinary circumstances of 2020, with much…

The fourth time may prove to be the charm for Netflix’s pricey biographical drama on the royal family. The groundswell of support for HBO dramas Game of Thrones and Succession rendered previous wins in the top category impossible — but the former is long gone and the latter isn’t eligible this year. With the field wide open for the first time since it premiered in 2016, and its own events finally catching up to recent pop culture (notably with Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin as Charles and Diana), 2021 might finally be The Crown’s year.…

Canceled on the eve of receiving an impressive number of Emmy nominations, Lovecraft Country should technically be competing with limited series. But, as a drama, it stands a much better chance of breaking through. Misha Green’s metaphor-laden monster-of-the-week series has enough cultural resonance to make it an easier Emmy sell than fellow fantasy fare The Boys or The Mandalorian, and anyone would be a fool to forget that it’s the lone HBO entry up for the top drama prize. The cable behemoth has taken home this category five of the past 10 years.…

Many speculated that series that successfully leaned into COVID storylines might play well with TV Academy voters. This Is Us, once an Emmy favorite but ignored in 2020, is the only contemporary-set drama in the race this year — and the only one to deal with the pandemic. Is it enough for the NBC show to pull off an upset after its fifth season, a feat that would make it the first broadcast drama to win in the category since 2006? The odds aren’t in its favor.…

At 91, Ed Asner has fully earned the right to the cranky-old-man archetype he’s been mining most of his career. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Asner discovered acting while serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he appeared in plays. After his service, he joined Playwrights Theatre Company in Chicago. He then moved to New York City, where he worked with the earliest incarnation of The Second City in 1959. By 1960, he was appearing on Broadway opposite Jack Lemmon in the legal drama Face of a Hero. TV soon came calling, with Asner landing everyman and cop parts in shows like Mission: Impossible and The Fugitive. But it was his role as Lou Grant, the gruff, lovable newsroom boss on The…