Innholdsfortegnelse for Awards Special 22B - August 3, 2023 i The Hollywood Reporter

When Lena Waithe called and asked if I wanted to direct a film about Mary Tyler Moore, I said, “Absolutely.” But I quickly added that I knew nothing about Mary and had never seen any of her work: “Maybe I’m the wrong person?” “But you’ll do a deep dive; you’ll be thorough,” Lena replied, “and your usual objective and sensitive self?” “Always.” And that was true. We were thorough, objective and always empathetic. But I was afraid to wonder aloud how a Black man goes about making his feature directorial debut about one of the most influential women in Hollywood television history — a white woman at that—without messing it up and while being a credit to his people. Lena Waithe and Debra Martin Chase are Black, brilliant and prolific…

There are many things to commend about Riley Keough, not least of which is her taste in choosing acting roles. The Daisy Jones & The Six lead actress, who earned her first Emmy nom for best actress for the Prime Video limited series, has been part of several of the most exciting titles in recent film history: Mad Max: Fury Road, American Honey and Zola all come to mind. But there’s no secret ingredient that helps her pick a project — her selection process is fairly straightforward. “It’s just really character-based for me, and then filmmaker-based, as well,” she explains. “Obviously, you want the script to be good. But first and foremost, I want to connect with the character. And I like to do things that feel challenging and [that]…

At 85, Judy Blume is having one of the best years of her long, storied career. The Prime Video documentary Judy Blume Forever and a charming adaptation of her most famous novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, debuted one week apart in April. A flurry of corresponding media attention reaffirmed Blume’s status as America’s preeminent writer of realistic young adult fiction. And in July, Judy Blume Forever earned two Emmy nominations, one for outstanding documentary or nonfiction special and another for its direction. Those newly minted Emmy-nominated directors, Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok, came to the project from different vantages: The former was a longtime Blume devotee, whereas the latter had never read her work. Longtime friends who collaborated on The New Yorker cartoonist doc Very Semi-Serious, Pardo…

1. HOOVERVILLE Mason’s clients Rafael and Mateo Gallardo, two Mexican American men accused of murdering the son of a wealthy oil baron, live in this village of makeshift homes. “Some of these shantytowns were really expansive and shockingly large,” says production designer Keith P. Cunningham, who built a “labyrinthine” set in Santa Clarita that served as the homeless encampment in multiple episodes. “We built 15 to 18 structures with finished interiors,” adds Cunningham, who notes that the VFX team “painted in with CG” to expand the world. 2. SHACK INTERIOR Art director Ian Scroggins says the Depression-era location offered “a big set of crossover issues for set dec and the art department” because of the size and amount of detail within the structures. “Once the crew got there, they seemed…

Prosthetics designer Barrie Gower is nominated not once but twice this Emmy season for his work on The Last of Us and House of the Dragon. It’s a big accomplishment for the previous Emmy winner — three times for Game of Thrones and once for Stranger Things — but it’s all part of a lifelong passion. “I’m one of those annoying people who knew very early on what I wanted to do for a career, in my early teens, really,” he explains. Gower grew up in the north of England, where his father managed a cinema. “He’d take me to press screenings and showings of films … I got to meet [animator] Ray Harryhausen when I was 4 or 5 years old. I was a big fan of the Sinbad…

Natasha Lyonne, the star known for her raspy wisecracks, believes she leads with her silliness. “I am, to my own detriment, sort of a silly person,” she says. “Because I think, you know, it’s funny that we live and we die and everybody takes it so seriously.” But her work, she explains, means a lot to her, which is why she found her nomination for best actress in a comedy for her mystery series Poker Face so moving. “When it comes to my work, I’m a very intense workaholic and very detail-oriented, and so it means a lot to me,” she says shortly after the July 12 nomination announcement (and before the July 14 SAG-AFTRA strike). On the Peacock show, Lyonne brings to life Charlie Cale, an accidental sleuth who…

When Nikole Hannah-Jones heard that the TV adaptation of The 1619 Project earned three Emmy noms, she was especially pleased about this specific recognition: outstanding cinematography for a nonfiction program. “I was particularly happy Jerry Henry got the nomination for cinematography because he’s just so talented,” she says of the Hulu docuseries that also received nods for best documentary or nonfiction series and for picture editing for a nonfiction program. Right before the nominations came out, “Naimah Jabali-Nash, one of the directors, texted me this shot from Georgia,” Hannah-Jones adds. “[In the picture,] we were out reporting in 99 percent humidity, on a plantation in Georgia. We were drenched in sweat and spending nine hours out there. It was a reminder of everything that we did to bring this to…

In episode three of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, titled “The Autopsy,” a mysterious extraterrestrial orb becomes the subject of trepidation and scrutiny when it explodes, killing a group of miners. “‘The Autopsy’ is an exploration, essentially, of: ‘Are we alone in the universe?’” explains cinematographer Anastas N. Michos, who chose this specific shot of a sheriff (Glynn Turman) investigating the derelict home where the device had been hidden. “That particular sequence is almost all one shot, actually. My director, David Prior, is a huge fan of camera with intent — camera[work] that actually has a purposeful beginning, middle and end in terms of storytelling.” Michos and his team focused intensely on getting the lighting just right for this shot. “It’s purely saturated in something I call neonoir —…

For the fortunate ones, Emmy nomination morning can be filled with mimosas, oversize bouquets and a nonstop parade of drop-ins, calls and congratulatory texts. But when The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Kathryn Hahn shortly after she was name-checked as outstanding lead actress in a limited series for her work on Hulu’s Tiny Beautiful Things, her reality looked a little different at that moment. “I’m sitting in a red zone with my hazards on,” says the veteran star with a laugh, downplaying the danger of L.A. traffic. “This is so awesome and so bananas.” It’s also a first. Though the recognition marks the 50-year-old star’s third Emmy nomination, it’s the first time she has been singled out as a lead performer after two supporting nominations, for work in Transparent in…

Director-writer-editor Brett Morgen’s David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream is certainly unlike any musician-centered film you’ve seen before. The movie plays out almost as if the viewer is watching through a kaleidoscope, a fever dream of footage and soundscapes from the Bowie archives as well as from films and artworks the artist referenced in his storied career. Nominated for four Emmys this year (directing, writing, editing and sound editing), the director sat down with THR to discuss how he arrived on Bowie as a subject and his artistic process. What draws you to a documentary subject at the outset? As I reflect back over the years, I’m definitely drawn toward wildly creative people who live life on their own terms. That seems to be the one consistent link between Robert Evans,…

This season’s Emmy category for outstanding visual effects in a series or movie (which until 2021 was called “outstanding special visual effects”) might just be the most epic and competitive in memory, with five contenders from iconic sci-fi properties. The nominees include season one of HBO’s House of the Dragon, the prequel series to Game of Thrones, which during its run nabbed six VFX Emmys, and the third season of Disney+’s Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian, whose previous two seasons won VFX Emmys in 2020 and 2021. (A year ago, another series set in the Star Wars universe, The Book of Boba Fett, won the category.) This year, another VFX nominee, Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — set in Middle-earth thousands of years before…

Throughout the respective seasons of The Crown and Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, the audience watches two royal women, Princess Diana and Charlotte, take charge of their narratives. Their evolution also is visible in their hair. Diana’s hair grows out from her iconic crop in the fifth season of the Netflix drama, eventually getting sleeker and more glamorous as she liberates herself from her marriage to Prince Charles. “For me, that evolution is of someone who is taking her independence and realizing her own value, her star value and what she was doing,” says The Crown hair designer Cate Hall. “She sort of looked like a film star by the end of that period.” It coincides with a change in hairdressing: “Her hair was silkier. Everything looked more glossy.” Meanwhile,…

When approaching the sound for FX/Hulu’s The Bear, showrunner Christopher Storer had a clear vision of what he wanted: utter chaos. That directive for the series helped propel the sound editing and mixing teams to two of The Bear’s 13 Emmy nominations this year. Production sound mixer Scott D. Smith, responsible for recording sound on set, had his work cut out for him. “Working in the kitchens is definitely a challenge [in part] due to the amount of noise being made during the scene. There really isn’t too much you can do about it,” he explains. “The pots and pans and all the props that they need — those aren’t things you can fake easily with something that’s a little quieter. They’re pretty much doing what they’d normally do in…

This year, the Emmy nominees for outstanding hosted nonfiction series include Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy (2021 and 2022’s winner) and Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi. It’s fair to say these food travelogues owe their entrée into awards contention to Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, which dominated the category in the 2010s and brought credibility to food programming in a field that had previously overlooked it. CNN’s Parts Unknown, which won 12 Primetime Emmys over 12 seasons — including six for outstanding informational series (as the category was known from 2013 to 2019) — was Bourdain’s fourth series following A Cook’s Tour and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on the Travel Channel, and Food Network’s The Layover. All were travel shows presented through the prism of food, but in Parts Unknown,…