“Saturday Night Live” produced both outstanding guest actor in a comedy series winners Sunday on the final night of the two- night Creative Arts Emmy Awards while the drama winners were from NBC’s “This Is Us” and Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Dave Chappelle won for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series, winning in a field that also included two other “Saturday Night Live” hosts, Tom Hanks and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Emmy was the first for Chappelle, who had two previous nominations as a producer and one as a writer.
The other nominees were two actors from HBO’s “Girls,” Riz Ahmed and Matthew Rhys, and Hugh Laurie, for his portrayal on HBO’s “Veep” of the former running mate of Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) who exposes his sexual affair with her in his memoir after begging her to keep it out of her memoir.
Although “Saturday Night Live” does not air in prime time, it is eligible for the Primetime Emmys and Creative Arts Emmy Awards, which cover programs that initially aired between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. from June 1, 2016, to May 31, 2017.
Melissa McCarthy won for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series for hosting “Saturday Night Live.” Another “Saturday Night Live” host, Kristen Wiig, was also nominated.
The field also included the late Carrie Fisher, who was nominated for her role as the snappy but loving mother of Rob Delaney (Rob Norris) on the British comedy “Catastrophe,” which is streamed for U.S. viewers by Amazon Prime Instant Video, along with Wanda Sykes (“black-ish”), Becky Ann Baker (“Girls”) and Angela Bassett (“Master of None.”)
Alexis Bledel won for outstanding guest actress in a drama series for her portrayal of the handmaid Ofglen in the Hulu dystopian drama “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In her acceptance speech at the Microsoft Theater, Bledel thanked her castmate Ann Dowd, who was nominated in the category for role as secretary of defense on the HBO drama “The Leftovers.”
The other nominees were Lavenre Cox (“Orange is the New Black”); Sharon Purser (“Stranger Things”), Cicely Tyson (“How to Get Away with Murder”) and Alison Wright (“The Americans.”)
Gerald McRaney won for outstanding guest actor in a drama series for his portrayal of Dr. Nathan Katowksi on the premiere of the critically acclaimed NBC family drama “This Is Us.” The nomination was the first for McRaney, whose television career began with a 1972 episode of the NBC macabre anthology series “Night Gallery.”
The field also consisted of two other performers from “This Is Us,” Denis O’Hare and Brian Tyree Henry, along with Ben Mendelsohn (“Bloodline”), B.D. Wong (“Mr. Robot”) and Hank Azaria (“Ray Donovan.”)
Sunday’s awards were for scripted programming, mainly in obscure technical categories, such as picture editing, costuming, hairstyling, makeup and sound, but there were also awards for guest acting. Streamed short-form programming was also honored.
Saturday’s ceremony focused on reality, variety, animation and documentary programming.
“Saturday Night Live,” the Netflix science fiction-horror series “Stranger Things” and HBO’s science fiction western thriller “Westworld” topped the field over the two nights with five Emmys each.
The Cartoon Network animated action-adventure series “Samurai Jack” and “13th,” the Netflix documentary on the intersection of race, justice and mass incarceration in the United States and the HBO crime drama “The Night Of” each had four.
HBO led among networks and streaming services with 19 Emmys, followed by Netflix, which had 16, and NBC which had nine.
—City News Service