Last night’s Emmy Awards in Los Angeles didn’t offer up many surprises when it came to the winners, celebrating the best and brightest in the television landscape today. With solid hosting from Andy Samberg, enough sartorial sensations and frock nightmares to keep fashion websites abuzz, and plenty of affable millionaires looking teary and happy holding on to their awards.
But the night truly belonged to Viola Davis, the 50-year-old African-American actress who became the first in the Emmy’s 67-year history to claim the prize for ‘Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series’ for her role as a duplicitous law professor in How to Get Away with Murder.
Having previously been nominated at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards for her work in cinema, this is Davis’ first major award win, and in taking to the stage, she showed herself capable of delivering a powerful speech. Opening with a quote from abolition activist Harriet Tubman, Davis’ acceptance will go down in Emmy history as a powerful speech:
In contrast to Davis’s debut on the awards stage, Allison Janney walked away from last night’s show with her seventh plaudit from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The actress, who won for ‘Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series’ for Mom, is a seasoned pro at saying the requisite thank yous, with good grace and self deprecation, as well as a nod to important social issues:
After Mad Men wrapped up its final season in typically enigmatic style earlier this year, its lead star Jon Hamm finally took home his very first Emmy – after 16 nominations. Handed the statuette by his occasional co-star Tina Fey, Hamm’s best speech moment comes as he mounts the stage – and then very quickly becomes a cavalcade of appreciation, to his fellow nominees, the production team on the show, and everyone who watched it.
Orange is the New Black’s very own Crazy Eyes Uzo Aduba won her second award for her role as an inmate in the Netflix prison drama, and her speech started off with an authentic “Hi!” But from there she ran the gamut of award-winners’ emotions, with tears rolling as she thanked the show’s crew, creator, network, and her family. It’s a genuine speech and heartwarming:
Comedy writers always make for good speech givers, and are capable of finding levity in brevity, and Veep’s British writing team of Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, and Tony Roche kept it short and sweet. And pretty funny:
The writers of Game of Thrones David Benioff and DB Weiss, who met each other when studying in Dublin’s Trinity College, also took home the prize for ‘Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series’, describing themselves as “two schmucks with no experience,” and then, in keeping with the show’s edginess, issuing the ceremony’s only profanity of the night – albeit a relatively tame one.
And finally, Frances McDormand, who claimed the gong for ‘Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie’ for Olive Kitteridge. The show having previously won two other prizes that night, the actress summed up why TV has become such a powerful force in the current media landscape, wrapping things up in a very short sentence:
