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Emmys: backstage, offstage, behind the scenes…

Which comedy winner says their fellow nominees are much funnier? What did the audience watch in commercial breaks?

Aside from a nice thankyou from Tom Hanks for The Pacific, the Emmys were a quiet affair for Australia.

After winning the award for Most Outstanding Miniseries, Hanks made note of the Aussie crews “who moved heaven and Earth to make this happen.”

Of course it was a 50 / 50 shot, with Return to Cranford the only other nominee.

“I would have wished there were more miniseries nominated,” Hanks said to media backstage. “There are themes and stories for which it’s the perfect medium. I hope there will be more.”

Hanks said his company doesn’t have another big miniseries ready to go, saying it takes years to develop them. Pacific took eight.

What matters, he said, is that the Playtone folks are storytellers and that they be allowed to tell more important stories: “We’re not engineers, we’re artists. We’re people who can keep you entertained for 10 hours. That’s what we do.”

Edie Falco said that winning for comedy in Nurse Jackie left her “dumbfounded.”

She noted that all of the other nominees in her category are what she considers real comedians, “women that are hysterically funny.”

Kyra Sedgwick said her TV law influences growing up included Cagney & Lacey. And, she added, “Angie Dickinson rocks pretty hard.”

Modern Family‘s Eric Stonestreet said “This win is a win for our show as it would have been if Ty Burrell or Jesse Tyler Ferguson or Julie Bowen or Sofia Vergara won. It won’t be awkward at all.”

Jim Parsons was asked backstage if winning for lead comedy actor helped partially make up for the fact his CBS series The Big Bang Theory wasn’t nominated for top comedy series. “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “It was such a good selection of shows nominated. Who are you going to give the boot to?… I hope everybody’s happy that we brought home some gold to the show. But it would be good if we were all here together.”

Archie Panjabi is glad that ethnicity isn’t central to her character, Kalinda, on The Good Wife.

“I started in England, and most of the roles I got were relevant to my ethnicity,” the first-time winner said. “We haven’t mentioned her ethnicity yet. … I think it’s the way it should be for young people — to watch television where the characters are from different backgrounds and ethnicity and it’s not all about their backgrounds.”

They may have put a 40-second time limit on Emmy acceptance speeches, but nobody is counting the seconds – or, for that matter, the minutes, if you’re Al Pacino. As the actor went well past his allotted time, ignoring the “Please Wrap it Up” sign that flashed on the TelePrompter, the orchestra didn’t dare to play him offstage.

Instead of watching commercials like viewers at home, the audience inside the Nokia Theatre was treated to clips of particularly funny and charming past Emmy acceptance speeches. One of them this year was the classic clip of Lucille Ball fumbling about without her glasses before being rescued by Milton Berle, who rushed onstage.

Just outside, the lobby’s men’s room, The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan was wolfing down a bag of popcorn while Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live was fidgeting with his smartphone as the show was about to begin. Across the way, Lauren Graham fiddled with her hexagon-shaped purse as she mingled with the crowd. Kevin McHale from Glee chatted with Dexter co-stars James Remar and C.S. Lee.

Source: Hollywood Reporter, CBS, Deadline

4 Responses

  1. Nobody really cares about these award shows any more. Maybe some die-hards will watch it on pay tv but check out the low ratings it got on Ten. Shocking.

  2. It should also be noted that there was an Australian win at the Emmys: Australian casting director Christine King was one of the team that won an Emmy for casting The Pacific.

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