A slew of actors have booked their tickets to Thailand. HBO has confirmed that Leslie Bibb, Dom Hetrakul, Jason Isaacs, Michelle Monaghan, Tayme Thapthimthong, and Parker Posey will be checking into the White Lotus for season three of the Emmy-winning anthology series from Mike White. They join previously announced returning cast member Natasha Rothwell, who will reprise her role as spa manager Belinda Lindsey for the Thailand-set third season. Production on season three of The White Lotus is set to begin in and around Koh Samui, Phuket, and Bangkok in February.
As per usual, the cast is a mix of well-known faces and lesser-known actors. An indie darling, Posey’s starred in such films as Party Girl,Best in Show, and, most recently, Beau Is Afraid. Bibb is no stranger to franchises, having starred in Iron Man, as is Isaacs, who appeared in the Harry Potter franchise. Monaghan returns to her old HBO stomping rounds after starring in the first season of True Detective. Hetrakul has starred in Bangkok Dangerous, while Thapthimthong is a relative newcomer.
Rumors have been swirling about casting for the third installment, so much so that White’s friend and School of Rock collaborator Jack Black had to shoot down talk that he’d be checking into The White Lotus as well. “I’ll deny because that’s easy to tell the truth,” he recently told Vanity Fair. “I have to throw ice water on that sweet, sweet theory.”
While Black may not be making his way to Thailand, these newly announced names will be booking longer trips than usual: the third season of The White Lotus will be “supersized,” as White recently told Entertainment Weekly. White promised that the show’s next chapter will be “longer, bigger, [and] crazier” than the previous two seasons, which took place in Hawaii and Italy, respectively. “I don’t know what people will think, but I am super excited, so at least for my own barometer, that’s a good thing…I’m super excited about the content of the season.” At the Wonka premiere, Rothwell told Vanity Fair that the show made her “gasp out loud a minimum of five times, and this was just me reading the scripts.”
The Emmy-nominated second season of The White Lotus focused on sexual power dynamics and starred Aubrey Plaza,Meghann Fahy, and Theo James, among others. It also saw the demise of Emmy winner Jennifer Coolidge’s fan-favorite character, Tanya McQuoid-Hunt, at the hands of some “evil gays.” After the season two finale, White told Vanity Fair that he was interested in exploring “something that’s a little more celestial” for the third season. “We are going to scout in Asia and look at countries there,” he told Vanity Fair. “My instinct is that maybe it has something to do with spirituality. Eastern versus Western religion, or Western people in an Eastern culture.”
So, will Posey and Bibb play feuding yoga moms on a retreat searching for inner peace? We’ll likely have to wait until 2025 to see.
It’s not every show that, 45 seasons in, finds itself bigger than ever before. I mean that literally: For the first time in its run, Survivor has been airing 90-minute-long weekly episodes, a format devised and produced after CBS gave host Jeff Probst and his fellow producers the green light to bump up their programming from an hour (including commercial breaks). The move made some sense: The iconic reality series has maintained unprecedented stability in the ratings, including a successful shift to streaming on Paramount+, and its recent Emmy nomination for best competition program—the first for the show in 17 years, a record gap for the category—suggests a resurgence in critical and industry support. (There was also the matter of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes thinning out CBS’s scripted schedule.) If anything, the expansion felt like a flex. How many series in Survivor’s wake have come, popped with big debuts, and gone? Virtually as long as it’s been on the air, Survivor has appeared in charge of its own future.
Then, in the first episode of season 45, a contestant quit. A few weeks later, another contestant quit. Fans expressed outrage on social media, both at the players and Survivor itself: With so many people applying and wanting to play, to compete for the famed $1 million prize, how could casting have missed the fact that multiple people simply couldn’t crack life out in the jungle? Since the show’s airing, Probst has promised to be harder on contestants who quit going forward—denying them the ritualistic torch-snuffing farewell that both of this season’s departees were granted. Now in conversation with Vanity Fair, Probst admits the quits rattled him.
“I was shocked—I honestly thought the days of somebody quitting were over, and I don’t know why. That conclusion that I came to had nothing to support it,” Probst says. “I started hearing the audience, the fans, and their unhappiness, and I was jolted back into reality, which is: This is really offensive to somebody who watches Survivor or dreams about being on Survivor. It made me realize I have to adjust.” But he pushes back on criticisms of his casting department: “I don’t think there’s any issue with our casting process. I totally see why you would assume that, but if you dove deep into our process, you would realize we know these people very well—and occasionally, somebody just gets overwhelmed.”
The anecdote is instructive for Probst, who’s been with Survivor since the very beginning (that is, more than two decades), and who’s evolved as the face of the franchise as the times have changed. He’s been open about his personal transformation informing Survivor’s growth following its COVID-induced hiatus, which ushered in a “New Era,” now on its fifth season, that more directly speaks to social issues and cultural divides. “Survivor really took on an even deeper meaning to me, which is a chance to remind ourselves what we’re capable of in a grand way, maybe the biggest adventure you could ever get for the vast majority of Americans,” he says. “My personality was shifting into much more uplifting, positive, encouraging.” This is still very much the case for Probst, post-quitting drama, though he sees room for nuance: “You can have a change of heart personally in how you see the world, but you still have to run this show in a way that holds players accountable.”
Even as Survivor throws in new types of immunity idols, competition advantages, and team configurations (called tribes) with every new season, its core premise has remained the same from its inception: A group of strangers gathers on an island, sources their own food and shelter, and votes each other out until one person remains. The combination of that simplicity, and all of the social complexity contained within it—which is to say, the building and fracturing of alliances and bonds and rivalries—has kept it around, beyond imitators and through dramatic changes in the television landscape. On streaming, Survivor is posting Paramount+ viewing gains of more than 30 percent, year over year, and the show regularly trends on X with the airing of a new Wednesday night episode.
“I’ve felt an even more enthusiastic response this season, and I think it’s directly related to 90-minute episodes because 90 minutes allows us to spend more time with the players—you get to know them on a much deeper level, and not just their backstories, but also smaller moments that often reveal so much character,” Probst says. He’s right that the expansion has made room for both the twist-heavy structure that became especially evident in the “New Era,” an inevitable development for a game show trying to stay fresh, as well as the humanistic depictions of camp life that helped make Survivor such a phenomenon in the first place. “That’s the way I see it,” Probst says. “With 90 minutes, we get both.”
CBS has confirmed that season 46, airing in the spring, will also broadcast 90-minute-long episodes. As to what’s coming after that? Probst says he’ll be pushing to know soon. “Speaking candidly, I’ve been asking for [longer episodes] for years. I think we delivered on it, and I think we’ll deliver on it again in 46—and, yeah, I’ll be walking back into the offices at CBS and saying, ‘Let’s go again,’” Probst says. “It would be hard to go back, but if we had to, we certainly can. We’ve done it for 23 years.”
But there’s also something to be said for the show’s many, many recent innovations—some of which viewers found to be detracting from Survivor’s core strengths—finally paying off. The show had instituted a “Shot in the Dark” maneuver for season 41, in which players who feel in danger of being voted out could play for a one-in-six shot at safety from a vote—while sacrificing their own vote at the same time. For years, nothing came of it; this season, Kaleb Gebrewold, isolated without enough allies, played it correctly while his entire tribe had voted against him, leading to what Probst calls “one of the greatest moments in the history” of the show. “If you’re patient, sooner or later the stars are going to align…but one of the complaints I hear often from fans is, ‘There’s too many twists. You should really try a season with no twists,’” Probst says. “Without that uncertainty, Survivor would not still be on the air. If it was simple as, ‘Hey, whoever has five people can vote out the group that has four,’ this game would’ve died 15 years ago.”
This year’s Emmy race for outstanding competition program, voted on by Probst’s industry peers, features shows nominated for, respectively, season 23 (The Voice), 20 (Top Chef), 15 (RuPaul’s Drag Race), 34 (The Amazing Race), and of course, Survivor’s 44. It’s rare for new shows to break in here, in other words, and when they do they usually stick around until they don’t. Survivor fell off in 2006 and never returned until now. “There was a point along the way where we just let it go, and we were bummed that our peers didn’t feel we belonged in the Emmy conversation, but we also know there are lots of great unscripted shows and there’s only so many spots,” Probst says. “I have no idea why we were nominated again.”
As Survivor’s 45th season airs its penultimate episode tonight, after another run proving the show’s ability to stir both passionate enthusiasm and occasional controversy, some clear factors surely made a difference. Probst cites his “long-term view” of growing the show with the times, and we see it working out; on the other side of that coin, the show has deftly infused old-fashioned elements back into the machinery of an episode, even if that’s as simple as spending a few more minutes on quiet camplife. (The show also brought back the “Survivor Auction,” which—if you know, you know.) There’s the freshly diverse, distinctive, ambitious cast, which even after a few unfortunate quits stands out for their hunger and their savvy. And of course, there’s Probst—as close to a constant as American primetime television has had this century.
“Just to be nominated by the people who are in our orbit and do the same kind of shows we do is all you really need,” Probst reflects as we wrap up. “It’s just somebody saying, ‘I see you. I see what you’re doing.’”
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When Hwang Dong-hyuk’s Squid Game debuted on Netflix in 2021, it took the world by storm, literally. The story follows 456 financially struggling competitors – especially gambling addict Seong Gi-hun – who use strategy and luck to compete in common South Korean children’s games for 456 billion won 45.6 (that’s $38.2 million USD). The twist? If you fail a game, you die, and only one person can win.
Squid Game quickly became the platform’s most-watched series – nominated for 14 Primetime Emmys. And actors O-Yeong Su, Lee Jung-Jae, and HoYeon Jung received SAG and Golden Globe awards for their performances. Despite being a fully-subtitled show, it had such a cultural impact that Mr. Beast created his own live Squid Games (sans death)…and then, Netflix of course couldn’t resist releasing Squid Game: The Challenge.
456 contestants come together to compete for $4.56 million reward in iconic challenges like Red Light-Green Light, carving a shape out of dalgona (honeycomb candy) without cracking it, marbles, and jumping over the Glass Bridge. It’s the largest cash prize in gameshow history, enough to make people do the unthinkable. And while I wasn’t sold at first, the controversy surrounding the show is enough to get me to tune in.
Controversy Behind Squid Game: The Challenge
Now that players have been eliminated from the games, we’re getting the bigger picture of what went on during production. Contestants reported eating under 1,000 calories per day, which makes sense considering the one meal we saw them eat was a leftover-sized container of rice and egg. Temperatures were so cold that one contestant suffered from hypothermia, while others were using lubricated condoms in lieu of chapstick.
The iconic green tracksuit uniforms (which must be returned to producers after elimination) were not enough to keep the competitors warm, especially during Red Light-Green Light…where they filmed over nine hours, staying frozen in place for up to 45 minutes at a time. Time goes much quicker when you watch, which is why one contestant caught fire for not being able to hold a squat (now we know she is a modern-day warrior.)
The editing of the show itself has caused its own issues. And thanks to social media, contestants are sharing their own version of Squid Game: The Challenge. While a series villain like Ashley may have appeared selfish for refusing to step forward during Glass Bridge for Trey, reports have indicated that Trey blindly jumped tiles on his own accord.
It’s a dystopian show – inherently creepy in its message that people will quash any natural, nurturing instincts just to achieve financial freedom. You slowly watch these people go insane, building mistrust amongst themselves and against the producers, the all-knowing Big Brother voice, and eerily always-in-character guards. And now that we’re taking a peek into what it’s like inside the Games, you can understand how someone would lose their mind.
I can confirm that this gameshow is the ultimate entertainment for viewers, and the controversy behind the conditions only fuel the fire. This show has everything: betrayal, likable characters, despicable characters, and moments that will make you hold your breath and scream at your television like it’s the Super Bowl.
Who Will Win Squid Game: The Challenge?
It’s the season finale of the games tonight, December 6, when we find out which of the three finalists – Player 287, Mai; Player 451, Phill; or Player 16, Sam – will win the coveted cash prize.
It’s also been reported that the show has been renewed for a second season, so you know we’ll be tuning in.
Jesse Armstrong never intended for you to empathize with the Roys. In a new interview with TheNew YorkTimes, the Succession creator shared his thoughts and intentions regarding the “deeply unmoored” Roy family, potentially ending Succession without naming a successor, and the depiction of wealth on the program: “It’s making them sicker.”
Viewers had to wait till the final moments of Succession to find out whether Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook), or Roman (Kieran Culkin) would succeed their father Logan Roy (Brian Cox) as the head of the family empire. But while determining who would take over Waystar Royco was the driving action of the series, Armstrong says that he toyed with the idea of never answering that question and ultimately leaving viewers in the dark. “That would be the sort of question I might come into the writers’ room with, like, ‘What would it be like if we didn’t give a successor? Could that be interesting?’” he tells the Times. “Through a process of discussion with smart people, we were like, ‘No, that would be annoying. Let’s not do it.’ One of the reasons for ending the show is that it starts to become either ridiculous or annoying if you continually defer that decision.”
Armstrong admits that he never really intended for the viewer to empathize with Logan Roy and his progeny. “It was never really a consideration. That may be a defect in our working process,” says Armstrong. “Maybe I could try to elicit the audience’s sympathy for someone, but I wouldn’t want to with this show. It would just feel so fake.” While Succession may not be concerned with its audience empathizing with the Roy family, Armstrong goes onto elucidate what he believes the show really is about. “It’s a show with these particular familial dynamics and with this relationship to power and money,” he says. “Everything flowed from that.”
Audiences took to Succession despite or, more likely because of, all the horrible things Roys did over the course of show’s four seasons. After reaching its bleak conclusion on May 28th, Succession earned 27 Emmy nominations, including nods for all of the main cast as well as two for Armstrong for writing and executive producing the series. According to the Times, Armstrong is only just now sifting through reactions to the show. “At the time, I kept my nose out of most of the reactions, because it wasn’t useful to know what people were thinking about the show. You can get a bit bent out of shape,” he says. “I like critics. I believe in criticism as an important part of keeping the cultural world going. But I didn’t look at a ton of stuff before the show ended.”
Now that the series is over, Armstrong can share that although Succession wasn’t designed to engender sympathy for the Roy family, he’s able to find “a lot of sympathy for the characters” when viewing them from a psychological perspective rather than an idealogical one. “The show takes more of a psychological view than a Marxist one. That’s the level at which I do have a lot of sympathy for the characters and I would hope that the audience does too,” he says. “They are pretty bad. They do bad stuff. But you see where they come from psychologically. That’s one of the tragedies of those kids’ lives.”
“A lot of the spaces that these people inhabit, these five-star hotels and private plane interiors, it’s not actually a beautiful world,” he continues. “That came from the research. There’s not a lot of fun going on in those worlds. Everyone is constantly thinking of the press release rather than the pleasure. That didn’t come from a precept that great wealth won’t make you happy. It probably could do. But not for these people.”
Despite their obscene wealth, the Roys, it seems, were doomed from the start. “It’s a very particular world, right? It’s a portrayal of what is possible within the moral universe created by a business and a family. The possibilities are really circumscribed. But they exist. The intention is to show this world truthfully as possible,” Armstrong says. “One of the few more things they have is family, and it has that incredible magnetism for them. It’s like they’re hooking up constantly to an IV drip and they don’t realize that there’s a percentage of poison in the IV. It’s not making them better. It’s making them sicker.”
The Emmys may now be nearly five months away, but members of the Television Academy are still in the midst of filling out their final ballots, resolved to stick to the established voting calendar even as the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes have thrown the actual ceremony’s timeline into chaos. This weekend marks the final push, as voters’ deadline to submit will come Monday night.
We’ve been analyzing and assessing all of this year’s big races for a very long time; front-runners have emerged in virtually every category, snubs and surprises have been dissected, and strategies around next cycle’s Emmys are already in full swing. But before voting wraps, the Awards Insider team has a few outside-the-box ideas for Television Academy members stalling on making their picks. Below are a handful of nominees that are starting to look like long shots when it comes to actually pulling off a win, but which still deserve serious consideration—any or all of them pulling off an upset will add some much-needed excitement to the most drawn-out Emmy season in recent memory. So listen up, voters!
Bill Hader, Barry (directing for a comedy series)
Hader has won two Emmys for his lead performance in Barry, but the Television Academy has yet to recognize the multihyphenate for what’s emerged as his most surprising and audacious contribution to the HBO series: his direction. Over time, the Saturday Night Live alum took more and more control behind the camera of his pitch-black comedy, going from helming the pilot to directing the majority of season three and then, most impressively, the entirety of the fourth and final season. As Barry got darker, its aesthetic ambition turned bolder, with Hader’s instincts as a filmmaker brought to the fore—genius tracking shots, impeccable comic timing, dizzying action sequences. At this point it feels like a long shot to say he’ll win a category that’s been dominated of late by lighter fare like Hacks and Ted Lasso. But Hader has pushed the medium forward here, and deserves to be honored accordingly. —David Canfield
Pedro Pascal, The Last of Us (lead actor in a drama series)
Depending on how much you believe the Roy family could split their own votes, Pascal may not be that much of an underdog. But his work as Joel on The Last of Us is undeniably quieter than anything on Succession too, with the actor often just offering grimaces or the flicker of a smile when large-scale chaos is erupting around him. But Pascal becomes so much more than just the gruff caretaker as the relationship between Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie evolves over the course of the season. Glimpses of his old life—humor, tenderness, a willingness to put up with terrible jokes—shine through his determination, right up until the finale’s bloody hospital shoot-out that becomes more heartbreaking than heroic. Also Emmy-nominated this year for hosting Saturday Night Live and narrating a CNN docuseries, Pascal had no trouble showing voters his range this year—but they only had to watch him on The Last of Us to see so much of what he can do. —Katey Rich
Young Mazino, Beef (supporting actor in a limited series or movie)
Beef isn’t exactly an underdog in the limited-series race, but the supporting-actor competition, with seven nominees, is very crowded. Black Bird’s Paul Walter Hauser is still expected to come out on top, and it would be a deserved win. But I’d like to give a last-minute shout-out to Young Mazino’s breakout performance as Paul, the younger brother of Steven Yeun’s Danny. Mazino has the charisma to capture audiences’ attention in any scene, but he also has to display the character’s fragility as he goes on a journey that includes being catfished and having an affair with a married woman (Ali Wong). He makes even the most rage-filled scene feel grounded, and is an exciting new discovery who holds his own opposite veteran actors Yeun and Wong. —Rebecca Ford
The Traitors (casting for a reality program)
We’re not usually encouraged to think about casting for reality TV—these housewives are actually friends in real life, of course, and these people were all chosen for their ability to survive on a desert island. But the meta-reality-TV nature of The Traitors was one of its many joys, bringing together fresh-faced contestants and veterans of reality franchises like Summer House, The Bachelor, and Real Housewives. In the beginning, the newcomers are starstruck by the experienced reality contestants, who enter Alan Cumming’s Scottish castle with the confidence that they already know how to play the game. But twists, of course, are in store. The Traitors deserved far more attention in the Emmys’ reality-TV categories, but honoring the casting team led by Erin Tomasello and Jazzy Collins would be an excellent way to give the show its due. —K.R.
Jury Duty (casting for a comedy series)
Jury Duty was such a surprise with its four Emmy nominations this season. The Amazon Freevee series, which was something like a documentary mixed with improv and scripts, could have been too unorthodox to be accepted by the TV Academy. It’s up for comedy series (which it won’t win) and supporting actor for James Marsden (who could win), but I’d really love to see it grab a win in this casting category. The series had to find actors who could seem like very real people, and they also had to be light on their feet and incredible at improv. Since a scene would change depending on what the show’s unsuspecting lead, Ronald Gladden, did in any given moment, these actors had to be versatile at all times. Some were so dedicated that they’d stay in character all day long, just to make sure they never gave away the secret of the show. —R.F.
Dominique Fishback, Swarm (lead actress in a limited series or movie)
Let’s get this out of the way: Any nominee for best actress in a limited series would be a deserving winner, from Kathryn Hahn and her soulful work on Tiny Beautiful Things to Lizzy Caplan and her invigorating takeover of Fleishman Is in Trouble. The category will likely come down to two more powerhouse performances: Jessica Chastain’s in George & Tammy—which already won her a SAG Award—and Ali Wong’s in Beef, with the latter show being the front-runner to win best limited series. But I hope the nomination isn’t just the reward for Dominique Fishback, whose tour de force in Swarm was the most undeniable performance of the year for me. The actor had to veer between slapstick and horror, heartbreak and cruelty, and connect all those dots in Janine Nabers and Donald Glover’s bold portrait of a serial killer. She did that with seeming ease, leaving a terrifying—if poignant—impression that felt impossible to shake. —D.C.
Love Is Blind (structured reality program)
This is the third year that Love Is Blind has been nominated in the structured-reality category, though it has never won. Seeing as it’s my personal guilty pleasure show, let me take this opportunity to say that voters should really consider it for a win. Yes, Queer Eye is motivational and feel-good and boasts impressive production value, but it has also won the past five years in a row. Netflix’s Love Is Blind has revitalized the dating reality show with its unique premise and colorful characters. It may not make you feel good, but it feels so good to feel so bad for these people. —R.F.
Dan Trachtenberg, Prey (directing for a limited series or movie)
Trachtenberg did what for years has seemed impossible—he directed a TV movie and got an Emmy nomination for it. As David Canfieldhas explained, the TV-movie category has been a bit of a wasteland at the Emmys lately, with so much of the buzz going over to limited series; given that TV movies and limited series are often lumped together at the Emmys, the movies rarely stand a chance. But this year Trachtenberg is nominated as a director, holding his own against the folks behind Beef, Fleishman Is in Trouble, and Dahmer. As he explained recently on the Little Gold Men podcast, it was a long journey to get his bold idea for the Predator series to the screen, and we’d love to see him rewarded for it. —K.R.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear (supporting actor in a comedy series)
Playing the striving, insecure, eternally put-upon Richie, Moss-Bachrach doesn’t give the most outwardly comedic performance in this category—that has to belong to gonzo Marsden playing himself on Jury Duty—or the most tragicomic, given the two nominees from Barry. But he might be the best at capturing that balance that’s present in so many modern comedy nominees, handling Richie’s quick wit (“Any of you incel, QAnon, 4chan, Snyder-cut motherfuckers wanna get out of line now?”) and the heartbreak he shares with his “cousin” Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) over the loss of their beloved Michael (Jon Bernthal). Richie’s emotional journey gets even deeper in the more recently aired season two, which would make a win for him here even more appropriate: comic relief, with depths never entirely out of sight. —K.R.
Survivor (reality competition program)
It’s more than a minor miracle that Survivor returned to this category in 2023. It’s the venerable CBS show’s first nomination there in 17 years, cited for both its 43rd and 44th seasons. When Emmy voters move on, they rarely look back—so how in the world did this happen? Survivor is the rare example of a long-running broadcast network staple determined to innovate and stay fresh. The results are not always successful—overload of producer interference, say—but there’s a reason why the show is still on and finding new fans. In the years since CBS issued a mandate to make each season’s ensemble of strangers more diverse, Survivor has boasted the most fascinating, dynamic casts on reality television, culminating with a gay Puerto Rican salon owner—and total Survivor mastermind—running away with a triumphant victory in the most recent season. For one of TV’s oldest and most famous social experiments, that’s award-worthy progress. —D.C.
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In the final episode of Daisy Jones & the Six, Daisy (Riley Keough) saunters onto the stage in a breathtaking Halston gold lamé cape. As the wind cascades through the cape and her long, red locks, it’s a literally show-stopping moment that cements the character as a larger-than-life rock star. “The first time she lifted her arms, it looked amazing,” says costume designer Denise Wingate. “It was so magical and everybody gasped.”
For Wingate, that final outfit is the culmination of Daisy’s journey on the show, but even she couldn’t anticipate its dramatic effect. On the night of filming, a storm brought a humid wind into New Orleans, allowing the ensemble to flow in a way it never would have in the city’s usual still, sticky weather. “It was the perfect storm, so to speak,” Wingate tells Vanity Fair.
Several of the Emmy nominees this year in the category for costume design in a limited series had a similar task to Wingate: creating magic for onstage performances that had to feel larger than life. Their stories were all very different—from the formation of a tumultuous 1970s rock group to the tale of a pair of country music icons that spanned three decades, to the creation of the 1980s male stripper phenomenon—but each designer was tasked with creating dynamic stage performances that would be appropriate for the period, harken back to the iconic looks of the time, and make the performers feel as confident as they looked. As Welcome to Chippendales costume designer Peggy Schnitzer puts it, “You are always on pins and needles hoping that it’s going to work because you don’t want to be the one to hold up the show,” she says.
Daisy Jones & the Six
LACEY TERRELL
Costume designer Mitchell Travers was tasked for the second time to create iconic looks for a character named Tammy for Jessica Chastain. After working with her on the 2021 film The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Travers returned to help her transform into country music icon Tammy Wynette, whose partnership with George Jones is chronicled in Showtime’s George & Tammy. He began his research by talking to Wynette’s daughter Georgette about what life was like with her mother. “I was like, ‘How many pairs of shoes did your mom own? Where did your mom keep her jewelry?’” Travers tells Vanity Fair. “I was fascinated to learn that her closet was never super organized.”
Musicians often didn’t have formal stylists at that time, picking up their looks on the road. Travers embarked on his own road trip. “I was able to pick up really bizarre pieces throughout my travels, and then take little elements from them to create Tammy’s show wardrobe,” he says.
Both he and Chastain gravitated towards fringe, his main inspiration for a custom red beaded dress that Wynette wears in the third episode. “It started out fairly humble, I mean as humble as a fully beaded gown can be,” he says with a laugh. “And then of course we added hundreds and hundreds of these handmade silver bugle bead tassels so that the whole thing became like fringe.”
The show-stopping number had originally been conceived as a jumpsuit, but Travers went back to the drawing board, knowing he hadn’t gotten it just right. When Chastain walked out onto the stage in the dress version for the first time, they both knew it was the right choice. “When you start to work with these theatrical costumes, you understand why they worked for so long,” he says. “They worked so beautifully under theatrical lighting. You’re able to capture an entire theater or speedway or whatever the performance venue was—you’re able to capture all of those eyeballs onto this one red dress because it’s covered in fringe.”
George & Tammy
Dana Hawley
That ability to hold the stage was one of the biggest challenges facing all three designers. For Schnitzer on Hulu’s Welcome to Chippendales, she needed the dancers’ looks to whet the appetite of a room full of screaming women. The Chippendales’ signature bow tie and cuffs were doable, but the breakaway pants became the biggest challenge. She called her good friend Christopher Peterson, who did the costumes for the Magic Mike franchise, who told her that the obvious choice—pants made of stretchy material—would actually be more difficult to pull off. “He said, ‘I’m gonna save you a lot of tears,’ which was true—I mean, it saved me hours of trial and error,” says Schnitzer.
She eventually realized some other key tricks for the pants, including snapping only every other snap and not closing the ones at the bottom. She also made multiple versions of the pants, some with more give for the full-on dance numbers and some with less for the moments when they pulled the pants off. “They’re dancers, they’re not actors, so they know how to move. They know how their body works,” she says. “So once we figured it out and with each of the dancers, it worked really well.”
Christa Miller is well known for her roles on television from The Drew Carey Show to Cougar Town and, most recently, Apple’s hit series Shrinking. But she’s landed her first Emmy nomination for her work behind the camera, as the music supervisor on Ted Lasso.
Miller doesn’t play a role on Ted Lasso, but she’s more accustomed to doing double duty, as she did for Scrubs, Cougar Town, and now Shrinking. “When I’m in a show and I’m doing the music, the timing works out perfectly,” she says. “I have time before to prep. I can listen to music in my car and figure it out with all the characters and scenes. And then afterwards, we are usually wrapped for the season when they start really editing.”
But Ted Lasso was not a show she was ever going to appear in. When the show’s cocreator—and Miller’s husband, with whom she shares three children—Bill Lawrence asked her to take on the role of music supervisor, she discovered she’d be working closely not only with co-music supervisor Tony Von Pervieux, but with cocreator and star Jason Sudeikis too. “He has great music taste, and he was very specific about a lot of the music choices,” Miller says.
Miller, who fell in love with music at a young age (“I was always the dorky person, but I had the best mixtape that everyone wanted,” she says), had originally thought that the UK-set Ted Lasso would lean heavily on the music of British bands. But Sudeikis brought in his own taste to create a blend that perfectly parallels the show’s story of an American coach traveling across the pond to coach a British football team. “It’s cool to work with someone that has a different music sensibility than you do,” she says. “I know his music, but it’s not music that I normally work with.”
Ted Lasso
Courtesy of Apple
As the series grew in success and popularity, they were able to get bigger names and songs onto the show. Nominated for Ted Lasso’s series finale, “So Long, Farewell,” Miller and Von Pervieux are especially proud of the original songs they landed for the third and final season, including Ed Sheeran’s “A Beautiful Game,” which is produced by Max Martin. “They were both fans of the show,” Miller says of the pair, who are also nominated for an Emmy for original song. The song is played as the team watches an inspiration video during halftime that then leaves them crying on the field—and lets the audience laugh. “It was such a perfect placement for a song because that’s what you want: If you can make someone cry, then it’s really funny.”
Miller prefers to feature songs in their entirety instead of snippets—“I only really want to use songs that I love and that I think are great”—and says the real magic happens when you pair a great song with a great scene. “The goosebumps are when you’ve matched a special song with the scene properly that’s not too on the nose and that’s different than you thought it would be,” she says.
This year’s top movie Emmy race will find a Predator movie competing against a gay Pride & Prejudice and the strangest biopic of the year. It’s the energy Hollywood needs right now.
Amid the ongoing strikes held by WGA and SAG-AFTRA, the 2023 Emmys have been postponed. Luckily, we now we have their new date… provided the contracts for writers and actors are actually settled by then. Provided all of that goes well, the 2023 Emmys will air on Monday January 15, 2024.
The original date for the show was supposed to be September 18, 2023. (The date also happens to coincide with Martin Luther King Jr. Day.)
With negotiations between the studios, the writers, and the stars all at a standstill, there was almost no change the strikes would be resolved by mid-September when the original Emmys telecast was set to air. The new date suggests Emmys producers think the strikes should be resolved by early 2024 — although that’s still quite a few months away.
The new date pushes the Emmys, typically a fall affair, into the middle of the movies’ awards season. Now the Emmys will be competing for attention with the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards, and the Critics Choice Awards, which will all air in the weeks before and after the Emmys, assume the strikes have in fact come to an end by then. And some of these shows also honor television series as well as movies — and they may have different eligibility rules than the Emmys, which are technically for shows that aired from June 2022 to May 2023. By the time the show is finally mounted, its picks could feel a little out of date.
12 Great TV Shows With Zero Emmy Nominations
These great TV shows were completely snubbed by the Emmys.
If you’re in Los Angeles, you have seen the ads, heard about the FYC events—driven at this point entirely by below-the-line nominees—starting to get off the ground. Actors’ press completed before the strike is still making its way online, predictions are circulating and being debated, and the voting calendar for Television Academy members remains unchanged. By all accounts, given the seismic disruptions caused by the dual SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, Emmy season is feeling oddly business as usual.
But with one huge caveat: Instead of being one month away, the Emmy Awards are now officially undated—with all indications pointing to a four-month postponement, into the beginning of 2024. The Emmys always struggle to make noise, relative to the Oscars, in the greater Hollywood landscape, as the ceremony arrives after a drawn-out second phase and smack in the middle of fall festivals—better known as the period of Oscar season when everything still feels fresh and exciting. This time around, they will have a lot more to compete with.
Put bluntly, the 2023 (slash 2024?) Emmys are going to feel especially weird. It’s not like promotion will get extended in line with the broadcast’s date shift. At the end of August, when voting on the winners concludes, Hollywood will completely cease any talk of TV’s biggest night. Strategists will have no strategy left to map out, talent no talking points left to promote. The results of the Emmys will sit with the relevant accountants, untouched, for months. When the show finally airs, it’ll likely be in January, the same month as the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes. Those latter awards shows, however, will be honoring movies from the past year, as well as much newer TV.
Take the example of The Bear, FX/Hulu’s breakout sophomore hit. Star Jeremy Allen White will likely win the comedy-lead-acting Emmy for season one, which aired way back in the summer of 2022, within weeks of taking the Globe and/or Critics Choice Award for the show’s second season, which aired this past June and is eligible for Emmy consideration next year. Most viewers and even some voters probably won’t realize this, at least; it’s to the Emmys’ benefit that its ineligible second season will keep it relatively relevant. But still: Weird!
And what of so many other shows? Drama series nominees House of the Dragon,The White Lotus,Better Call Saul,Andor,Wednesday, and Obi-Wan Kenobi will have all been off the air for well over a year by the time the Emmys happen. Should they win, acting front-runners like Jessica Chastain (George & Tammy), Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird), and Niecy Nash-Betts (Dahmer) will take the stage about a year after previously winning SAG or Critics Choice Awards for the same roles. Such a delayed embrace would feel especially stark as the awards shows surrounding the Emmys are set to honor TV and performances that’ll be only a few months old.
On its face, this puts the Emmys in a difficult spot at a difficult moment, given the scrutiny over awards-show ratings and general decline of network television. The ceremony is typically broadcast on a different major channel every year, with Fox taking the reins this time around. The Emmys rarely honor broadcast shows, with notable exceptions like Abbott Elementary, and offer these channels fewer benefits in the current, segmented viewership era. And this is all assuming that the strikes are even over by January, and that the stars that the show so desperately needs will be able to walk the carpet, participate in corny bits, and accept their gold trophies.
With the SAG Awards moving to Netflix and other awards shows potentially following suit, all this may contribute to an acceleration of the Emmys’ evolution. There’s no reason to expect business as usual because, frankly, it’s not. Whoever hosts can more sharply call out the bizarre dynamics. The ceremony can function as a preview of what is to come as much of a look back at the year’s (or year before’s) TV. Perhaps room could, or should, be made for a little more pizzazz. For an awards show notoriously averse to change, then, here’s some inspiration. Many of these winners will, fairly or not, feel a little bit like an afterthought. It’s on the Television Academy to tell us why else to tune in.
Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.
The 75th Emmy Awards are the latest production to be put on pause due to the Hollywood strikes, and will not air as planned in September.
A person familiar with the postponement plans but not authorized to speak publicly pending an official announcement confirmed the delay Friday.
No information about a new date was immediately available.
The Emmy Awards were scheduled to be broadcast on Fox on Sept. 18. Rules laid out by the actors’ union, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, say stars cannot campaign for the Emmys or attend awards shows while on strike.
Writers are also not permitted to work on awards shows until the strike ends.
Whenever the next Emmy Awards are held, HBO will walk in the leading contender. The network is up for 74 awards for three of its top shows: Succession, The White Lotus and The Last of Us.
Ted Lasso has the most comedy category nominations with 21, including best comedy series and best actor for Jason Sudeikis.
Roughly 65,000 SAG-AFTRA actors and 11,500 Writers Guild of America screenwriters are on strike, calling for better pay, structure with residual payments and protection from the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
If you were looking forward to catching the Emmys in September, it seems you’re going to have to wait. The delay was expected by many since we’re still in the throes of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. These strikes have an effect on a few different levels when it comes to awards shows. The actors who are taking part in the strike are expressly forbidden from promoting anything. Writers involved in the WGA strike aren’t permitted to do so much as write jokes for the hosts of the event.
With all of these factors coming together, the TV Academy and Fox have decided that there’s really nothing else they can do. Vendors were the first to be notified since there are tons of moving parts. While we see the ceremony itself on TV, it’s a whole extended event. There are producers and event staff who also need ample time to make arrangements.
The TV Academy recently released a statement on the decision to push everything back.
Like the rest of the industry, we hope there will be an equitable and timely resolution for all parties in the current guild negotiations. We continue to monitor the situation closely with our partners at Fox and will advise if and when there is an update available.
This marks the first time since 2001 that the Emmys have had to be postponed. Back in 2001, the Emmys were pushed back once as a result of the 9/11 attacks and then pushed back again. This year, it seems that the plan is to hold the ceremony in January 2024. At least for now.
12 Great TV Shows With Zero Emmy Nominations
These great TV shows were completely snubbed by the Emmys.
As many expected, the 75th Emmy Awards have been postponed due to the ongoing actors and writers strikes.
The show, originally slated for Monday, September 18, has now been officially postponed. (Variety first reported the news.) Rumors have circulated that the awards ceremony was likely to move to either a November or January broadcast, with the Television Academy hoping for the former and network Fox preferring the latter option. According to Deadline, it’s now expected that the Emmys will move to January, giving the industry more time to resolve its conflicts, and the official date will likely be announced in August. Vanity Fair has reached out to the Television Academy for comment.
When the WGA strike began in early May, questions immediately began to crop up about what might happen if the work stoppage continued into the fall. The MTV Awards had to pivot, ditching the red carpet and in-person speeches after talent as well as host Drew Barrymore refused to attend and striking writers could not be enlisted to write the show. The Tony Awards found a way to go on without writers after reaching a unique deal with the WGA.
But already the Emmys seemed in a more precarious position as a show that depends so deeply on writers for a scripted broadcast, and as a show that specifically honors writers in several categories. When the SAG-AFTRA strike officially began on July 13, it felt as if it was the final nail in the coffin for the Emmys to keep their original date.
The telecast, which will air on Fox, is completely dependent on stars attending as both nominees and presenters. But SAG-AFTRA’s strike rules are very clear when it comes to awards shows: Striking actors can’t even attend. The option of holding a press conference and skipping the broadcast was not seriously considered, in part because of the significance of this ceremony marking the Emmys’ 75th anniversary.
The SAG-AFTRA strike was announced just after the Emmy nominations were, which has created a unique situation for nominees leading up to voting. All acting nominees are prohibited from doing any press about their projects, including for their most recent nominations. These interviews and FYC events (which they are also prohibited from attending) are usually a major staple of awards season; without them, there’s been a strange vacuum in coverage of the nominees this season.
But voting for Emmy winners is still slated to take place from August 17 to 28. That’s because the Television Academy has decided shaking up the calendar at this late stage could unfairly benefit or hurt some contenders. For an illustration, then, on just how unusual this moment is: In a few weeks, the Academy will cast Emmy ballots for projects like The Bear season one, whose results won’t be announced until, it seems, January—the same month that FX/Hulu’s hit show will probably start picking up major awards at the Golden Globes and various guild awards for its second season. That this was Hollywood’s best option says it all about this confusing, paralyzing moment for the industry.
Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.
Any good nomination-morning story starts with a bit of real life intruding in. For Daniel Radcliffe, it was trying to get his baby boy to go down for a nap before he got a string of congratulatory texts. For Nathan Lane, it was walking his dog—“Life goes on, even when you’re nominated for an Emmy,” he says with exaggerated grandeur. And for Riley Keough, it was putting her phone on silent to stay present with her family, before returning to the hubbub that awaited her.
Radcliffe’s nomination for outstanding lead actor in a limited series or TV movie is one of eight earned by Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, a result probably no one imagined when the film originated as a parody trailer on Funny or Die in 2010. But that makes the victory all the more sweet. “It makes me feel good about the way I choose to do things,” says Radcliffe, whose post–Harry Potter career has included swerves into the absurd (2016’s Swiss Army Man) and flat-out ridiculous. “Certainly there was no part of me that was like, I’ll play Weird Al and that will be awards bait.”
Lane will be returning to the Emmys this year for the first time as a winner—he nabbed guest actor in a comedy last year for the same role that got him nominated this year, the shady Teddy Dimas on Only Murders in the Building. He admits that having finally won after seven nominations takes a bit of the pressure off—if he hadn’t won, he says, “I’d have to call Susan Lucci and get some advice.” And he’ll get next year off: He isn’t part of the upcoming third season of Only Murders because of his demanding Broadway schedule, though he’s holding out hope to return in a potential fourth season. And he’s confident they’ve found a good replacement for him; with Meryl Streep among the new season’s stars, “I’m sure they’re engraving her Emmy right now just to save time.”
James Marsden can reasonably claim to be surprised by his nomination—his series Jury Duty, in which he plays an over-the-top jerk version of himself, was an underdog hit in the spring. It surprised almost everyone by getting four nominations, Marsden’s included. “I didn’t think I was ever in the conversation,” he says. “I really didn’t know if the show was either. So it was a genuine surprise when the show got its love.”
Keough, meanwhile, was widely tipped for a nomination for her lead role in the limited series Daisy Jones & the Six, but had made her peace with whatever was going to happen. “I wasn’t set on anything,” she says. “I was kind of okay with either outcome—if I did or didn’t get nominated. And I was very just grateful for the experience.” While she now is a nominee, she’s celebrating the way she probably would have even if she hadn’t gotten a nod: “I’m not working at the moment, so I’ll just spend the time at home with my family and celebrate.”
Paul Walter Hauser, already a Critics Choice and Golden Globe winner for his role in Black Bird, was sweating on behalf of his late costar, Ray Liotta. “You know, this show came out a year ago, and you wonder if people are going to remember everything,” he says. “And Ray really gave one of his greatest performances, just before he left us. That’s definitely something worth celebrating, though bittersweet.”
It all started with a sign from above for Dominique Fishback, nominated in the limited-series category for her powerful turn in Swarm. She woke up in the middle of the night, hours before the nominations were announced, and spotted a good omen: It was 3:22 a.m., and her birthday is March 22. “So I said, Well, that’s good that I caught those numbers,” she tells us. “That’s a good Emmy sign.”
Succession’s J. Smith Cameron, meanwhile, was on vacation in Italy with her husband, writer Kenneth Longerman, when she heard that she’d been nominated for her second Emmy. Upon arriving there, Cameron says, she had reached out via Instagram to White Lotus star Sabrina Impacciatore—also recognized Wednesday by the TV Academy—“because I just assumed she lived in Rome, and we were in Rome. I wrote her a message just on Instagram saying, ‘I don’t even know if you’re here. I kind of assume you live here, but I don’t know that. But we are here and we’d love to buy you an espresso or Prosecco if you’re around.’”
It’s been a great year for television, and the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards are celebrating a number of fan favourites, including HBO’s Succession and The Last of Us.
Actor Yvette Nicole Brown and Television Academy chairman Frank Scherma announced the Emmy nominations on Wednesday, though the mood was more sombre than usual amid the ongoing writers strike. An actors strike may also be looming, with Hollywood’s largest union representing about 160,000 actors currently demanding better compensation for streaming productions and protections from the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Succession, a satirical dramedy about a family of one-percenters fighting to control a media conglomerate, walked away with the most nominations for the show’s highly anticipated final season. Stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin scored Best Actor nods. Sarah Snook, who plays Shiv Roy, is already a well-positioned frontrunner to score the Best Actress win.
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The show leads all nominees with a whopping 27 in total. The Last of Us was close behind with 24, while The White Lotus received 23.
The Last of Us and The White Lotus, two additional HBO productions, received several nominations, proving once again that streaming remains king in the television space.
2023 Emmy Awards nominees for lead actor, actress in a drama series announced
Popular duo Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey of The Last of Us received Best Actor and Actress nominations for their emotional portrayal of trauma-bonded apocalypse survivors. (Ramsey identifies as nonbinary and uses any pronouns)
Jennifer Coolidge, who won the Emmy last year for Outstanding Actress in a Limited or Series or Movie, is nominated alongside The White Lotus co-stars Aubrey Plaza and Meghann Fahy.
Christina Applegate, who in February hinted she would retire from acting as a result of her multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis, received a nomination for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy for Dead to Me.
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Barry, The Bear, Ted Lasso, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Abbott Elementary all earned several nominations as well.
(Find a complete list of the nominees in the major categories, below.)
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Best Drama Series
Andor Better Call Saul The Crown House of the Dragon The Last of Us Succession The White Lotus Yellowjackets
Best Comedy Series
Abbott Elementary Barry The Bear Jury Duty The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Only Murders in the Building Ted Lasso Wednesday
Lead Actor, Drama
Jeff Bridges, The Old Man Brian Cox, Succession Kieran Culkin, Succession Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul Pedro Pascal, The Last of Us Jeremy Strong, Succession
Lead Actress, Drama
Sharon Horgan, Bad Sisters Melanie Lynskey, Yellowjackets Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale Bella Ramsey, The Last of Us Keri Russell, The Diplomat Sarah Snook, Succession
Lead Actor, Comedy
Bill Hader, Barry Jason Segel, Shrinking Martin Short, Only Murders in the Building Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso Jeremy Allen White, The Bear
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Lead Actress, Comedy
Christina Applegate, Dead to Me Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Quinta Brunson, Abbott Elementary Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face Jenna Ortega, Wednesday
Supporting Actor, Drama
F. Murray Abraham, The White Lotus Nicholas Braun, Succession Michael Imperioli, The White Lotus Theo James, The White Lotus Matthew Macfadyen, Succession Alan Ruck, Succession Will Sharpe, The White Lotus Alexander Skarsgård, Succession
Supporting Actress, Drama
J. Smith-Cameron, Succession Jennifer Coolidge, The White Lotus Elizabeth Debicki, The Crown Meghann Fahy, The White Lotus Sabrina Impacciatore, The White Lotus Aubrey Plaza, The White Lotus Rhea Seehorn, Better Call Saul Simona Tabasco, The White Lotus
Supporting Actor, Comedy
Anthony Carrigan, Barry Phil Dunster, Ted Lasso Brett Goldstein, Ted Lasso James Marsden, Jury Duty Ebon Moss-Bachrach, The Bear Tyler James Williams, Abbott Elementary Henry Winkler, Barry
Supporting Actress, Comedy
Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Ayo Edebiri, The Bear Janelle James, Abbott Elementary Sheryl Lee Ralph, Abbott Elementary Juno Temple, Ted Lasso Hannah Waddingham, Ted Lasso Jessica Williams, Shrinking
Murray Bartlett, The Last of Us James Cromwell, Succession Lamar Johnson, The Last of Us Arian Moayed, Succession Nick Offerman, The Last of Us Keivonn Montreal Woodard, The Last of Us
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Guest Actress, Drama
Hiam Abbass, Succession Cherry Jones, Succession Melanie Lynskey, The Last of Us Storm Reid, The Last of Us Anna Torv, The Last of Us Harriet Walter, Succession
Guest Actor, Comedy
Jon Bernthal, The Bear Luke Kirby, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Nathan Lane, Only Murders in the Building Pedro Pascal, Saturday Night Live Oliver Platt, The Bear Sam Richardson, Ted Lasso
Guest Actress, Comedy
Becky Ann Baker, Ted Lasso Quinta Brunson, Saturday Night Live Taraji P. Henson, Abbott Elementary Judith Light, Poker Face Sarah Niles, Ted Lasso Harriet Walter, Ted Lasso
Variety Talk Series
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Jimmy Kimmel Live! Late Night with Seth Meyers The Late Show with Stephen Colbert The Problem With Jon Stewart
Best Competition Series
The Amazing Race Ru Paul’s Drag Race Survivor Top Chef The Voice
Best Limited or Anthology Series
Beef Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Daisy Jones and the Six Fleishman Is in Trouble Obi-Wan Kenobi
Lead Actor, Limited Series or Movie
Taron Egerton, Black Bird Kumail Nanjiani, Welcome the Chippendales Evan Peters, Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Daniel Radcliffe, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Michael Shannon, George & Tammy Steven Yeun, Beef
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Lead Actress, Limited Series or Movie
Lizzy Caplan, Fleishman Is in Trouble Jessica Chastain, George & Tammy Dominique Fishback, Swarm Kathryn Hahn, Tiny Beautiful Things Riley Keough, Daisy Jones and the Six Ali Wong, Beef
Supporting Actor, Limited Series or Movie
Murray Bartlett, Welcome to Chippendales Paul Walter Hauser, Black Bird Richard Jenkins, Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Joseph Lee, Beef Ray Liotta, Black Bird Young Mazino, Beef Jesse Plemons, Love & Death
Supporting Actress, Limited Series or Movie
Annaleigh Ashford, Welcome to Chippendales Maria Bello, Beef Claire Danes, Fleishman Is in Trouble Juliette Lewis, Welcome to Chippendales Camila Morrone, Daisy Jones & The Six Nicey Nash-Betts, Dahmer—Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Merritt Wever, Tiny Beautiful Things
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The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on Sept. 18, starting at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.
The “Stranger Things” cast will be sitting this one out this year.
Actor Dacre Montogomery is the lone representative for “Stranger Things” at this year’s Emmys awards submissions due to restrictive guidelines for the award show voting period.
Despite the electrifying success of Season 4 Vol. 2 of the ’80s sci-fi adventure series last summer, which saw the “Stranger Things” cast fighting the sinister powers of dark entity Vecna, most of the show’s stand-out stars aren’t eligible for the ballot at this year’s awards ceremony.
The new rule occurred in June 2022 when the TV Academy eliminated the “hangover episode rule”, which gave grace to a series that premieres current-season episodes after the May 31 eligibility deadline but before the commencement of nomination round-voting.
The fourth season of the Netflix behemoth was divided into two parts. Vol 1, consisting of seven episodes, debuted on May 27, 2022, and was eligible for the 2022 Emmys, where it competed for 13 noms and took home five wins, most notably for stunt coordination, sound editing, and prosthetic makeup.
Vol. 2 dropped towards the beginning of this year’s eligibility period, beginning on June 1, 2022. The episodes, including the epic “Chapter Eight: Papa” and “Chapter Nine: The Piggyback”, were seen as orphan episodes by the Academy, which prevented the series from submitting nominations for the drama series category.
The new rule is a blow to actors Millie Bobby Brown and Joseph Quinn, who achieved rave reviews for their performances in the episodes.
Due to Montgomery’s appearance at the end of the “Piggyback” episode, the actor, who played the deceased Bobby Hargrove in the series, is the only star obtaining a nomination submission this year, where he’s competing against submissions from “The Last of Us” and “Succession”.
The remaining nomination slots for the series are for technical aspects, including period costumes and music composition.
By the time the creator of a hot new series sat down for an interview with Vanity Fair this week, picket lines were underway in New York and Los Angeles, and TV’s top writers had just declared themselves “more united than ever” with the WGA on strike. The guild released guidelines that prohibited public-facing, For Your Consideration–specific appearances—but press interviews remained on the table, at least in theory. Asked about the decision to promote their work, the creator demurred in time-honored Hollywood fashion by just focusing on the work—work that, for now, has halted entirely.
This is the difficult balance faced by a corner of Hollywood’s writing community—that is, the corner in serious contention for Emmy nominations this summer. With writers rooms disbanding and productions shutting down, Emmy campaigns may seem like a small part of the puzzle. But as one insider points out, that is where the WGA has the most leverage right now. “There’s still content on the air and there’s still content in the can,” this insider says. “Right now, telling everybody that they can’t go do FYC is disruptive, and it puts every single studio and network in the same position.”
That position seems to be a state of cloudy confusion, as studios and networks scramble to figure out how to pivot their awards seasons, while individual writers, showrunners, and their teams grapple with what they are and are not allowed to do for the remainder of an unprecedented Emmy season.
Events have always been a cornerstone of the FYC season, as hundreds of shows compete for the attention of voters. Vanity Fair has learned of a wide range of events canceling over the past week. John Mulaney was one of the first, canceling his Netflix event tied to his stand-up special, and soon after Jon Stewart nixed his showcase at the Apple TV+ FYC space. In just one week, we’ve also seen cancellations of a SAG-mounted career retrospective of a popular casting director, a crafts-driven conversation for a streaming series, and several standard FYC panels meant to primarily showcase showrunners and actors. Several actors have seemingly refused to participate out of solidarity, while thus far, writers have near-unanimously boycotted these events, which are typically buoyed by major studios. Now, even events that are further out—like Nicole Kidman’s AFI Life Achievement Award tribute previously slated for June 10—are being postponed. “Everyone’s feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment,” says an event coordinator.
Accordingly, campaigns are just trying to keep up with who will do what—and when. For a great number of contenders, their entire marketing apparatuses are based around awards, and their continued existence, to some extent, relies on this economy. But because the situations are so case-by-case, with some talent still unclear on what’s allowed and guidelines evolving, there has been little chance to plan for what this Emmy season would look like post-strike. “I’m sure everyone is in this madness right now,” says one studio strategist. “I need to redo a lot of things [based on] what’s changing and what’s not changing.” Multiple sources say the expectation is that more talent will shift toward stronger demonstrations of solidarity the longer the strike goes on—significant, since Emmy voting begins next month.
Panels and other public appearances as a part of an FYC campaign are officially against the WGA rules. In the WGA’s official “Strike Rules FAQ,” in response to a question about attending festivals or FYC events, the WGA states, “You should let the company know you are prohibited from making these promotional appearances about your work until the strike concludes.”
However, insiders say they’ve been getting mixed messages about doing press interviews for their projects, since those are not public-facing appearances. “They’re saying no panels, but discouraging press,” says one publicist. (Vanity Fair has reached out to the WGA for comment.) And rumors are swirling around that the WGA is taking note of showrunners or EPs who are in the WGA and are still participating in press interviews, even if it’s not explicitly against the rules. That alone has spooked some from participating.
Because all official FYC events must be booked through the TV Academy, it was quick to respond to the logistical issues of panels that rapidly fell apart after the first day of the strike. Hosts were informed that if they’d booked an FYC event they had the option to cancel the panel aspect (and continue with only a screening and reception). The studios could then “send an additional email communication with updated panel details for a $1,000 fee,” or could simply have the event updated on the Academy event page without paying a new fee. They were also presented with the option of canceling the event altogether, in which case the Academy would not reimburse the initial invite administration fees. But if invites had not been sent to members yet, the fee would be waived.
So why all this scramble, when rumors of a strike had been circling for months? The reality is that most FYC event spaces had to be booked—or built, in the case of several streamers that mounted entire activations from scratch in empty warehouses around Los Angeles—months in advance. Even up until the final tense days of negotiation, many hoped there would be resolution, as in 2017 when a strike was averted at the eleventh hour. “We weren’t preemptively canceling anything because we were all still very hopeful that something would happen and they’d be able to come and support their shows,” says a network publicist.
Spoilers for the season 2 finale of *__Abbott Elementary __*ahead.
Nearly all of the action in Abbott Elementary’s season 2 finale, “Franklin Institute,” takes place beyond the familiar hallways of Abbott Elementary. In fact, much of the Emmy-winning comedy’s 22-episode second season has been an excursion, offering viewers their first glance at their beloved teachers’ extracurricular activities.
“We definitely had an agenda in the first season—this is just going to be a workplace thing, about what’s said within the walls of Abbott,” co-showrunner and executive producer Patrick Schumacker tells Vanity Fair over Zoom. “Season two we wanted to start to get to know a bit about their personal lives. We’re going to meet siblings, we’re going to meet romantic partners.” Enter characters like Janine’s (Quinta Brunson) responsibility-averse sister (The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri); their emotionally coaxing, Versace-clad mother (Taraji P. Henson); and Jacob’s (Chris Perfetti) sneakerhead boyfriend Zach (Larry Owens).
But would the crew that’s ostensibly filming Abbott’s students and staff for a documentary about public school funding actually follow their subjects to, say, a hookah lounge, as they did in the show’s holiday episode? “It brings up one of my favorite Onion headlines of all time, which is, ‘The Office documentary crew feels like they have enough footage,’” jokes co-showrunner and EP Justin Halpern.
While expanding Abbott’s orbit presented logistical challenges—how to shoot a confrontation between Janine and her sister that she wants to shield from cameras, for instance—it also allows for tonal harmony. That aforementioned “Holiday Hookah” episode, where will they/won’t they co-workers Janine and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) edge ever closer to their eventual first kiss, has the characters seeing each other in a fresh, after-hours light just as the audience does.
Below, the showrunning duo talks about the closure Janine and Gregory find in the season 2 finale and the “tension” that awaits them in season 3, as well as the role awards season played in making everyone involved not want to “fuck this up.”
Vanity Fair: The 22-episode network season is a bit of a lost art. Walk me through how you went about tackling it.
Justin Halpern: The fun thing about 22 is that you have some episodes where you can drill down on one part of a character. You can take some swings you wouldn’t normally, like the episode where Barbara [Sheryl Lee Ralph] starts a fire. That episode is solely about how Barbara deals with mental health and stress, things that affect her at work that she wishes wouldn’t. If you’re doing 13, you probably can’t do that episode because you’ve got to keep things moving.
Was there a period in the season that you felt the stretch and challenge of 22 the most?
Patrick Schumacker: I believe we did seven episodes straight. Episode five happened to coincide with the Emmys. There was pressure for people to make all of these commitments to promote the show and get the word out during award season. And you could just tell that everybody was exhausted. We’re like, “We can’t do more than five moving forward, ideally four.” That was the pressure of award season, but then also of knowing that after episode five, we still had 17 more to do. So yeah, man, that was where it really, really hit us.
The “Educator of the Year” episode felt like acknowledgement of the incredible awards success *__Abbott __*achieved in its first season. How did that attention impact the second season?
Halpern: I don’t think we ever felt the pressure of, “Oh, man, everybody loves it. How are we going to fuck this up?” We felt like, “Hey, let’s just keep making the same show we made in the first season because that’s the show that we all love.” You can get caught up in a lot of shit in this business. For Quinta, and for us it was like, “Are we making episodes that we would want to watch? All right, let’s keep doing that.” So, we try to keep the noise out of it.
Pack your bags, we’re going to an AFC Richmond game. Ted Lasso Season 3 is officially back on Apple TV+, which is great news for just about everyone on the whole entire planet. The 40-time Emmy nominated show follows American coach Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) as he tries to wrangle the English soccer team, AFC Richmond.
Seemingly the final season in the series, we will see how Richmond owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) deals with her ex-husband, Rupert, in his attempt to purchase West Ham United. At Season 2’s conclusion, we know Rupert has hired Richmond’s assistant coach, Nate, whose lust for the spotlight festered throughout the entire season. Plus, we’ll see the fallout from the breakup between Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and Keeley (Juno Temple).
With stellar episodes written and produced by Sudeikis, Goldstein, and Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard), you can’t go wrong. A go-to comfort show for many, Ted Lasso makes you believe in – and root for – a fully fictional sports team. Season 3’s 10 episodes will air over 2 months and conclude on May 17th.
As Sudeikis is one of the main writers, one has to wonder how much this show parallels his real life experiences. It features a recently divorced Ted Lasso flying overseas, missing his son, and even mentions that Ted’s ex-wife has a new boyfriend the end of episode 1. Plus, the plot itself is almost a tad too similar to the Harry Styles/Olivia Wilde relationship that blew up only a few months ago.
If you’re ready for more Ted Lasso, Nike has collaborated with the show to give us AFC Richmond merch. I’m Richmond till I die, so here are my fave pieces:
