Combining the prior weekend’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards with last night’s primetime Emmy proceedings leads to some expected numbers as well as a major unexpected lack of a tally. Under the “no surprise” heading, HBO topped the overall count with 23 primetime Emmys, six of which came yesterday–four of those for the telefilm Game Change, including taking the categories Outstanding Miniseries or Movie (a story centered on the VP candidacy of Sarah Palin), Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special (director Jay Roach), Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special (Danny Strong), and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie (Julianne Moore for her portrayal of Palin).
Rounding out last night’s Emmy wins for HBO were Tim Van Patten who won Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series on the strength of the “To The Lost” episode of Boardwalk Empire, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her portrayal of Selina Meyer in Veep.
On the flip side to HBO’s expected strong performance was the complete surprise of Mad Men not winning a single Emmy despite tying for the lead with American Horror Story with 17 nominations. Mad Men was going for a fifth straight Emmy win as Best Drama, a record-setting distinction that would have broken a tie with Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and West Wing, which each have won four Best Drama Emmys.
Homeland
The surprise supplanting of Mad Men for the Best Drama honor was achieved by Homeland, which scored a total of six Emmys this year–two in the Creative Arts proceedings and four last night for Best Drama, Writing for a Drama Series (Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon, Gideon Raff for the pilot episode), Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody) and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison).
Homeland‘s six wins tied for the most Emmys this year with HBO’s Game of Thrones, which took all of its honors at the Creative Arts ceremony. Homeland‘s six wins also accounted for all of Showtime’s Emmys this year. Homeland‘s strong performance, particularly across the major categories, could also be categorized as at least mildly surprising. Its nine nominations yielded six Emmy Awards. And while nominee Michael Cuesta didn’t win for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series (won by Van Patten for Boardwalk Empire), he is an executive producer of Homeland and has directed multiple episodes. Among those accepting the Emmy for Best Drama Series were exec producers Gansa, Gordon, Cuesta, Raff, Avi Nir and Ran Telem.
In our The Road To Emmy Series of feature stories, SHOOT caught up with Cuesta who this year scored his first career nominations for the DGA Award as well as for the Emmy recognizing Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, both on the basis of the Homeland pilot.
Cuesta told SHOOT last month that he was gratified over Homeland‘s Emmy nominations. “Personally it means a lot because there’s sacrifice involved when you have to spend time away from your family, shooting in North Carolina and for the second season opener, shooting in Tel Aviv. Professionally,” said Cuesta, “the Emmy nominations recognize that someone with a background in commercials and independent features can come into the television series arena and do a good job. I think it shows that you can cross over to different disciplines and achieve something.”
Cuesta noted that his commercialmaking experience has served him in good stead on the TV program front. Via The Artists Company, his spot credits span such brands as Ford, Dove, State Farm, and some emotionally moving PSAs on teen alcoholism for The Ad Council. “Working with an ad agency, different creatives’ ideas, helped me to deal with the studio and the network. If I didn’t have that training, I wouldn’t have been nearly as good at navigating properly through channels so that we could do the best show possible. You deal with agency creatives, producers and the client, sifting through their ideas, figuring out how to pick and choose what works best. When I walked into the episodic world, my agency dealings helped me make the transition to handle the politics of this business.”
The director’s TV show pedigree includes over the years his helming multiple episodes of HBO’s Six Feet Under, the operatic-style pagan wedding season two finale of True Blood, and the pilot for CBS’ Blue Bloods. Cuesta also directed and exec produced the pilot for Dexter a few years back, as well as multiple episodes in that Showtime hit series’ first season.
It was his work on Dexter that turned Showtime onto Cuesta for Homeland. “Showtime had success with me handling controversial, edgy material [with Dexter] and saw that as a fit for Homeland,” related Cuesta.
Homeland stars Danes as a bipolar CIA agent who believes that a recently discovered POW in Afghanistan has been turned by al-Queda. The show centers on her obsession with this suspect, who is universally regarded as a hero.
What helps to set the show apart, observed Cuesta, is that the show is not an action thriller but more a psychological thriller/drama. “I think that’s another reason Showtime thought I was right for the series based on the few films I had done, which worked more with the psychological aspects of characters. They saw that connection. Homeland examines scars left behind, most notably the psychological scars in a post 9/11 world.”
Besides TV and commercials, Cuesta–as alluded to earlier–has made a mark in independent feature filmmaking as a director. His L.I.E. was nominated for the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize back in 2001 and for Independent Spirit Awards for Best Director, Best Feature and Best First Screenplay in ’02. The director’s 12 and Holding earned an Independent Spirit nom for the coveted John Cassavetes Award in ’07. And Cuesta’s Roadie made its world premiere at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
Homeland‘s two Emmy wins at the Creative Arts ceremony were for Outstanding Editing (Jordan Goldman and David Latham) and Outstanding Casting (Junie Lowry Johnson, Libby Goldstein, Judy Henderson, Craig Fincannon, Lisa Mae Fincannon) for a Drama Series.
Countdown
After Homeland and Game of Thrones with six total Emmys each came three shows with five apiece–Game Change (HBO), Modern Family (ABC) and the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys (History).
The latter scored three Creative Arts Emmys and two last night–for Outstanding Lead Actor (Kevin Costner) and Outstanding Supporting Actor (Tom Berenger) in a Miniseries or Movie. Among those Costner thanked in his acceptance speech was executive producer Leslie Greif for his perseverance to make Hatfields & McCoys a reality.
In our first installment (SHOOTonline, 7/13) of The Road to Emmy Series, Greif recollected, “When I started out in the business 30 years ago, it was the heyday of the miniseries–Roots, The Thorn Birds, The Winds of War and Rich Man, Poor Man. Like every young producer, I was looking for the next great story that could become the next great miniseries. For me, the story of the long-standing feud between the Hatfields and McCoys was timeless, a theme we could all relate to–a story about revenge, family, family honor and the cycle of violence, set against a backdrop of American history as the country was adapting and gaining its identity after the Civil War.”
Greif remained steadfast in his belief that this was the perfect vehicle for a miniseries. “Over the past 30 years, I knocked on every door of every network,” said Greif. “But network executives would change–out with the old, in with the new and I’d have to start all over again. Finally, one day the magic happened. I met the right executive at the right time, Nancy Dubuc [History’s president and general manager], a visionary programmer who had the foresight and insight to see that there was an audience for this kind of a story in the form of an event miniseries.”
Next in this year’s Emmy countdown with four apiece were the shows Boardwalk Empire (HBO), Frozen Planet (Discovery), Great Expectations (Masterpiece; PBS) and Saturday Night Live (NBC).
Scoring three Emmys each were Downton Abbey (PBS) and Two And A Half Men (CBS).
As for the final network count, behind HBO’s 23 were CBS with 16, PBS with a dozen, ABC with nine, and Discovery Channel and Showtime with six apiece.
