By Robert Goldrich
LOS ANGELES --Apple’s “The Greatest”–directed by Kim Gehrig of Somesuch–won the primetime commercial Emmy this evening (1/7) during the second of two Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremonies held this weekend in the Peacock Theater at LA Live.
“The Greatest” features a cast of real people who are quite able even though they each have varied so-called “disabilities” impacting mobility, vision, hearing, cognition and so on. Thanks to different innovations from Apple, these people are able to deftly navigate everyday life. The film represents and depicts the physically/cognitively challenged community in a new positive light, showing how technology can help, providing different forms of accessibility and capabilities. The commercial’s track, “I am the Greatest,” used lyrics from the speeches of the legendary Muhammad Ali, who himself became an advocate for disability after developing Parkinson’s late in life. Australian choral group Spinifex sang the song which was remixed by one of the cast, Cola Boyy, a music artist and producer who opened Coachella in 2022. Jazz pianist Matthew Whitaker then improvised on top of this track, and the resulting collaboration was woven throughout the fabric of the film.
The Emmy is the latest major accolade won by “The Greatest.” In 2023 it earned the Advertising Excellence honor at the AICP Show while also coming up a winner in the categories of Direction, Performance and Licensed Soundtrack or Arrangement. “The Greatest”–for which Apple served as the creative agency–was also one of the spots which helped Gehrig win the DGA Award last year in the commercials category.
In the Emmy competition, “The Greatest” topped a field of nominated commercials which included three other Apple projects: “Call Me” with Timothee Chalamet for Apple TV+, directed by Tom Kuntz of MJZ for TBWAMedia Arts Lab; Airpods’ “Quiet the noise” helmed by the directing collective Megaforce via production company Iconoclast for TBWAMedia Arts Lab; and “R.I.P. Leon” directed by Andreas Nilsson of Biscuit Filmworks.
Rounding out the primetime commercial Emmy nominees were: Dove’s “Cost of Beauty” directed by Henry-Alex Rubin of SMUGGLER for Ogilvy London and Toronto; The Farmer’s Dog Super Bowl commercial, “Forever,” directed by Goh Iromoto of Sanctuary; and another Super Bowl ad, Squarespace’s “The Singularity” directed by Aoife McArdle of SMUGGLER.
Apple has found a place in the spot Emmy nominees’ circle for five consecutive years. And in four of those years, Apple has annually scored at least two Emmy nominations.
“The Greatest” joins two other Emmy-winning spots for Apple in years past–”Think Different” in 1998, and “Misunderstood” in 2014.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More