Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle are among the nominees as the two-night 2022-23 Creative Arts Emmy Awards conclude Sunday at the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live.
Awards in 49 categories of reality, variety, documentary, nonfiction and animated programming and game shows will be presented, including outstanding narrator, where Barack Obama is nominated for “Working: What We Do All Day,” a four-part Netflix documentary series exploring the ways people find meaning in their work.
The other nominees are Mahershala Ali for the Netflix documentary series on chimpanzees “Chimp Empire”; Angela Bassett for the Prime Video documentary “Good Night Oppy” on the Mars rover Opportunity; Morgan Freeman for the Netflix nature documentary, “Our Universe”; and Pedro Pascal for the CNN documentary on the region encompassing the southern end of South America, “Patagonia: Life on the Edge of the World.”
Barack Obama won in the category for the 2021-22 season for the five-part Netflix documentary series, “Our Great National Parks.”
Bassett is a three-time nominee in the category first presented in 2014 and Freeman a two-time nominee, but neither has won.
Michelle Obama is nominated as an executive producer of the Netflix special of her wide-ranging conversation with Oprah Winfrey “The Light We Carry: Michelle Obama & Oprah Winfrey,” which is nominated for outstanding hosted nonfiction series or special.
The nomination is the first for Michelle Obama.
The other nominees are the CNN travel and food series, “Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy,” the winner the past two seasons; Netflix’s “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman and Volodymyr Zelensky”; the Hulu travel and food documentary television series, “Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi”; and the CNN documentary series, “United Shades Of America with W. Kamau Bell.”
Game show categories will be included in the Creative Arts Emmys for the first time, moving from the Daytime Emmys under an agreement announced in 2022 between the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which conducts the Primetime Emmys and Creative Arts Emmys, and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which conducts the Daytime Emmys, to award many programming categories by genre instead of daypart.
The outstanding game show nominees are “Jeopardy!” which won each of the final three times the award was presented at the Daytime Emmys and a record 19 times since it was revived in 1984; “Family Feud”; “The Price Is Right”; “That’s My Jam”; and “Wheel Of Fortune.”
The nominees for outstanding game show host are Steve Harvey of “Family Feud,” the winner the final time it was presented at the Daytime Emmys in 2022 and three times overall; Pat Sajak of “Wheel of Fortune,” a three-time winner, most recently in 1998, and 21-time nominee; “Jeopardy!” hosts Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings; and “Password” host Keke Palmer.
RuPaul is seeking his eighth consecutive victory as host for a reality or competition program. The host of MTV’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has won each time he has been nominated.
RuPaul’s seven wins are the most in the category established in 2008. “Survivor’s” Jeff Probst is second with four.
Of the five individuals or teams nominated, only Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph of the second-season Peacock baking series “Baking It” were not among the nominees when the award was last presented in 2022.
The other nominees are Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Tan France, Antoni Porowski and Jonathan Van Ness from the Netflix makeover series “Queer Eye”; Nicole Byer of the Netflix baking series, “Nailed It!”; and Padma Lakshmi, from the Bravo cooking competition “Top Chef”.
Julie Andrews is nominated for the third consecutive season for outstanding character voice-over performance for providing the voice of the anonymous newsletter columnist Lady Whistledown on Netflix’s steamy alternate history period drama “Bridgerton.”
Maya Rudolph is nominated for the fourth consecutive season for supplying the voice of Connie the Hormone Monstress on the Netflix adult animated coming-of-age comedy “Big Mouth.” She won in 2020 and 2021.
Alex Borstein, who supplies the voice of Lois Griffin in the Fox animated comedy “Family Guy” is also nominated for the fourth time. She won in 2018.
Wanda Sykes received her second nomination of supplying the voice of Gladys on the Comedy Central adult puppet show “Crank Yankers.”
The other nominees are both first-time nominees in the category — Mel Brooks for narrating Hulu’s “History of the World, Part II,” and Ali Wong for supplying the voice of Bertie the song thrush in the canceled Adult Swim animated comedy, “Tuca & Bertie.”
The Creative Arts Emmy Awards began Saturday with the HBO Max post-apocalyptic drama “The Last of Us” topping the field with eight victories, including for outstanding guest actor and actress in a drama series.
Nick Offerman won for outstanding guest actor in a drama series for his portrayal of a survivalist in the series’ third episode. The Emmy was the first for Offerman, who had been nominated with his “Parks and Recreation” castmate Amy Poehler as outstanding host for a reality or competition program for NBC’s “Making It” three times.
The field of six included three other actors from “The Last of Us” — Murray Bartlett — who portrayed the lover of Offerman’s character in the episode titled “Long, Long Time ” — Lamar Johnson and Keivonn Montreal Woodard.
The other two nominees were both from “Succession,” HBO Max’s drama about a family who owns a media company, James Cromwell and Arian Moayed.
Storm Reid won for outstanding guest actress in a drama series for her portrayal of the orphaned girl Riley Abel over two actresses from “The Last of Us” — Melanie Lynskey and Anna Torv — and three from “Succession,” Hiam Abbass, Cherry Jones and Harriet Walter.
Reid was a first-time nominee.
Judith Light won for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series for her portrayal of retirement home resident Irene Smothers on Peacock’s crime comedy-drama “Poker Face.” The Primetime Emmy was Light’s first and came on her fifth nomination
Light was twice nominated for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for her role of the ex-wife of Jeffrey Tambor’s character on Prime Video’s “Transparent” and once each for outstanding guest actress in a comedy series for ABC’s “Ugly Betty” and outstanding supporting actress in a limited series or movie for FX’s “The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.”
Light won Daytime Emmys in 1980 and 1981 for outstanding actress in a daytime drama series for “One Life To Live.”
Walter was also among the nominees for her two appearances as the mother of Premier League team owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) on “Ted Lasso.” Two other actresses from the Apple TV+ soccer comedy were also nominated, Becky Ann Baker, who guest starred as the title character’s mother and Sarah Niles, for the recurring role of sports psychologist Sharon Fieldstone.
The other nominees were Quinta Brunson for hosting “Saturday Night Live” and Taraji P. Henson for portraying the mother of Brunson’s character on the ABC comedy “Abbott Elementary.”
Sam Richardson won for outstanding guest actor on a comedy series for his portrayal of the Ghanaian billionaire owner of a Moroccan soccer team on “Ted Lasso.” He was also nominated for the role for the 2021-22 season, losing to Nathan Lane for his role as deli chain owner Teddy Dimas in Hulu’s “Only Murders In The Building.”
Lane was also among the nominees for the 2022-23 season.
Luke Kirby was nominated for a third time for his portrayal of envelope-pushing comedian Lenny Bruce on Amazon Prime Video’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” He won in 2019.
The field of five also consisted of two nominees from the Hulu comedy “The Bear” — Jon Bernthal, who plays the late brother of award-winning chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) who returns to his hometown of Chicago to manage the chaotic kitchen at his deceased brother’s sandwich shop, and Oliver Platt, who portrays the best friend of the late father of the Berzatto siblings and the restaurant’s key investor.
Pascal was nominated for hosting “Saturday Night Live.”
Tim Robinson won for outstanding actor in a short form comedy or drama series for the second consecutive season for portraying various characters in the Netflix comedy “I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson.”
Both of the other nominees were from “Die Hart 2: Die Harter,” Kevin Hart, who portrays a fictionalized version of himself on The Roku Channel “Die Hard” parody and Ben Schwartz, who portrays Hart’s over-eager assistant, Andre.
Jasmine Guy, best known for her portrayal of Whitley Gilbert on the 1987-93 NBC comedy, “A Different World,” became an Emmy winner Saturday on her first nomination, winning for outstanding actress in a short form comedy or drama series for her portrayal of the woman taking over Sector 9 on “Chronicles of Jessica Wu,” Tubi’s series about a girl on the autism spectrum (Shante DeLoach) who has mastered martial arts.
The other nominees were both from “Die Hart 2: Die Harter,” Nathalie Emmanuel and Paula Pell.
The Emmy for outstanding television movie went to The Roku Channel’s Daniel Radcliffe-starring biopic of Grammy-winning song parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.” Two of the other nominees were from Hulu, “Fire Island” and “Prey,” with one each coming from Disney+, “Hocus Pocus 2,” and NBC, “Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas.”
“The Last of Us” also won for outstanding prosthetic makeup, outstanding special visual effects in a series or a movie, outstanding main title design, outstanding sound editing for a comedy or drama series (one hour), outstanding sound mixing for a comedy or drama series (one hour) and outstanding picture editing for a drama series.
“The Bear,” “Wednesday,” Netflix’s supernatural mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ (Jenna Ortega) years at Nevermore Academy, and “The White Lotus,” the HBO Max black comedy-drama anthology, each won four Emmys Saturday.
Most of Saturday’s awards were in various technical categories, including hairstyling, makeup, costuming, production design, picture editing, sound editing, sound mixing and visual effects.
An edited presentation of the two nights of the Creative Arts Emmys will air Jan. 13 at 8 p.m. on FXX and be available on Hulu Jan. 14.
Awards in the top 25 categories in comedy, drama, competition, limited, variety sketch and talk series and the Governors Award will be presented at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards on Jan. 15, also at the Peacock Theater. Programming had to initially be broadcast or streamed between June 1, 2022-May 31, 2023 to be eligible.
All three ceremonies were scheduled for September but postponed because of the strikes by the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.