Emmy-Nominated Female Creatives in Their Own Words
On the campaign trail at various Q&As during this awards season, many women who are nominated for shows with numerous Primetime Emmy nods talked about the importance of bringing authenticity to scripted TV shows. The 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards will take place September 15 at the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards, which are primarily for the Primetime Emmy technical categories, were presented in two separate ceremonies at the Peacock Theater on September 7 and September 8.
Women continue to be the minority among these nominees. The report Women’s Media Center Investigation 2024: Gender and Non-Acting Primetime Emmy Nominations revealed that women are 34% of the non-acting nominees for the 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards this year. The percentage of female Primetime Emmy nominees increased only slightly, compared to the 75th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, which had women as 33% of the nominees.
Here is what some prominent women who are TV creatives had to say about their work that was nominated for the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards. Their shows are listed in alphabetical order.
As the creator/showrunner/star of the ABC comedy series Abbott Elementary, Quinta Brunson has become an award-winning force to be reckoned with and a rare female entertainer who gets Primetime Emmy nominations for acting, writing, and producing for a single series. In Abbott Elementary (which premiered in the 2021-2022 TV season), Brunson portrays Janine Teagues, a teacher at the underfunded public Willard R. Abbott Elementary School in Philadelphia. So far, Brunson has won two Primetime Emmys — Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actress for a Comedy Series — and has been nominated as an executive producer in the category of Outstanding Comedy Series.
For the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards, Abbott Elementary has nine nominations for its third season, including the three aforementioned categories. In addition to Brunson, other women from Abbott Elementary who have nominations are Brittani Nichols (Outstanding Comedy Series); Wendy O’Brien (Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series); Moira Frazier and Christina Joseph (Outstanding Contemporary Hairstyling); and Janelle James and Sheryl Lee Ralph (Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series).
Backstage in the press room at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, Brunson talked about who inspires her as a chief creative for Abbott Elementary: “Carol [Burnett], Marla Gibbs. Christina Applegate, I genuinely feel, is a very underrated actress. Her performance in Anchorman goes unacknowledged all the time. Janelle [James], Sheryl [Lee Ralph], Lisa [Ann Walter], my cast members—I channel their energy. Ali Wong is an incredible stand-up [comedian]. Wanda Sykes. Lucille Ball.”
Brunson added, “[Martin co-stars] Tisha [Campbell] and Tichina [Arnold]. I feel like they raised me. The TV was always on Martin. … So many of the women who have come before me … Niecy Nash in Reno 911!. She was a huge inspiration for me.”
FX on Hulu’s The Bear has become an awards darling ever since its debut in the 2022-2023 TV season, by winning at just about all the major awards shows for TV series. This intense series is about a group of people connected to a Chicago family-owned restaurant renamed The Bear, led by co-owner/executive chef Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto, played by Jeremy Allen White. For its first season, The Bear won 10 out of the show’s 13 nominations (including Outstanding Comedy Series) at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards. For the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards, The Bear received 23 nominations in most of the same categories and has won seven prizes in the Creative Arts Emmy categories.
Joanna Calo is a co-showrunner of The Bear with Christopher Storer. As executive producers, Calo and Storer share a nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, while their collaboration on The Bear’s “Fishes” episode earned them a nod for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. This episode resulted in Emmy wins for Jamie Lee Curtis (Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series) and Joanna Naugle (Outstanding Picture Editing for a Single-Camera Comedy Series).
Other women from The Bear who won in Creative Arts categories for the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards included the all-female casting director team, who triumphed in the category of Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series: Jeanie Bacharach, Maggie Bacharach, Jennifer Rudnicke, Mickie Paskal, and AJ Links. For The Bear’s “Forks” episode, women Emmy winners are Andrea Bella, Annie Taylor, and Leslie Bloome, for Outstanding Sound Editing for Comedy or Drama Series (Half-Hour) and Animation. In addition, The Bear has these actresses who received nominations: Ayo Edebiri (Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series) and Liza Colón-Zayas (Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series).
Calo told some behind-the-scenes stories about The Bear in October 2023 for an Austin Film Festival Q&A that was recorded for an episode of the PBS interview series On Story. She said, “My main role is running the writers’ room and getting the scripts out. And once we go into production, Chris [Storer] is more focused on directing, because those are the worlds we come from. … I’ve been able to direct as well. We share in a way that is particular to us. It was a show he created, and then I came on in the development phase, and it kind of became what it is. Our show is what it is because every single piece just happened to line up in a certain way.”
Calo added, “Part of what was exciting for us was looking at all the media about restaurants that existed already and figuring out what hadn’t been done. And it felt like there was a glaring hole, which was an actual, real experience. There was this cultural idea of chefs as these rock stars, but that’s not what their actual lives are like. … FX was most excited about creating a group of characters that you would fall in love with and want to stay with. I thought that was actually an interesting part of the development. As much as you want it to be stylish or natural or whatever, you have to love these people and want to come back to them every day.”
Speaking about the “Fishes” episode, Calo stated: “Some of these [scenes] are from Chris [Storer]’s life. We were going to do [the “Fishes” episode] in Season 1, and then we didn’t have room. I think it’s so great that we waited until Season 2. I think it’s a weird, happy accident. … We loved that idea of, ‘Make it feel like you’re really there.’ … It just sort of became a fun game of how many people can you put in a room. And everyone’s talking at the same time. It would’ve felt fake if they weren’t talking at the same time … I’m really proud of that episode because it was the best of what we do.”
Comedy from a female point of view is the focus of Max’s Hacks, which has been another top contender at the Primetime Emmys, ever since the show’s first season debuted in 2021. The stars of Hacks include Emmy-winning Jean Smart as longtime comedian Deborah Vance, and Emmy-nominated Hannah Einbinder as Deborah’s chief co-writer, Ava Daniels. Hacks was created by co-showrunners Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs (who is married to Aniello and is a Hacks co-star), and Jen Statsky. At the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards, Aniello won the prize for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, while all three showrunners won the award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series — and have received those respective nominations again for the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Other women from Hacks who have received some of the show’s 16 nominations for the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards are Jeanine A. Ringer and Jennifer Lukehart (Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Program [Half-Hour]); Jeanne McCarthy and Nicole Abellera Hallman (Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series); Kathleen Felix-Hager and Karen Bellamy (Outstanding Contemporary Costumes for a Series); Jess Brunetto (Outstanding Picture Editing for a Single-Camera Comedy Series); and Jennifer Bell (Outstanding Contemporary Hairstyling). In addition, these Hacks women have been nominated in acting categories: Smart (Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series); Einbinder (Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series); and Kaitlin Olson (Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series).
During an April 2024 press conference for Hacks in Los Angeles, Statsky talked about women in comedy experiencing sexism from people who think that women can’t be as funny as men: “People have never said that to our faces. And I think it’s in the DNA of the show. When we made the show, the conversation between Paul [W. Downs], Lucia [Aniello], and myself was very much so about that — especially for me and Lucia as women in comedy. So many of these women did have to deal with that being said to their face and did have to deal with it so aggressively head-on. And even though we are not free of it at our age, in our age, we stand on the shoulders of the women who did have to deal with that for so, so long. And so, this show in and of itself is a love letter to those women. Thank you for being in the trenches and working to fight, maybe even harder than we had to, and also proof in the pudding that these women are incredibly funny.”
Aniello added, “I think we’re all operating in this kind of power dynamic of racism, sexism, all these things. … Why certain things are funny and certain things aren’t funny is because they’re playing within the power dynamic of our society. So, for us, I think Deborah Vance as a character is somebody who endured a lot of sexism, in comedy specifically. And so, what we’re sometimes doing is analyzing what kind of person comes out of that system at this age.”
Continuing on the subject of Deborah Vance, Aniello said: “And she has had a lot of internalized misogyny. I think that’s why the character is often so concerned with how she looks, as she wants to be kind of considered attractive still, and all these things. And so, for us, we’re also breaking down what is that woman like and is that character able to evolve past a lot of the misogyny she lives around. And somebody like Ava who has kind of grown up in a slightly less misogynistic world is there to kind of help break her out of those shackles even more.”
Statsky said that Hacks will continue to explore relevant topics that are often uncomfortable but are realistic, such as sexism, ageism, and homophobia: “I think we are always trying with this show to not take a topic and say, ‘We want to address that topic. We want to talk about that topic.’ We try to be character first and story first. And they are topics that we feel would come up in their natural lives in what they’re doing.”
Statsky continued, “Deborah and Ava are two characters who have been on the fringe. They are not typically the cis, straight, white men who have more of a path in comedy and are upheld as being the people who deserve to be there. They’re both people who have had to fight to get in there. And so, we always want to treat these characters with respect and love and say they deserve to be there too. And no one should be keeping them out of this. And they use each other and partner with each other to get into this world and keep doing their work and help each other. I think that’s always the goal of the show.”
The Morning Show has been a flagship awards contender for Apple TV+, ever since the streaming service launched in 2019. The drama series chronicles the ups and downs of a morning news show of the same name on the fictional network UBS. Jennifer Aniston (who plays the character of Alexandra "Alex" Levy) and Reese Witherspoon (who has the role of Bradley Jackson) co-star as news anchors/TV personalities on The Morning Show and are among the show’s real-life executive producers. For the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards, The Morning Show received 16 nominations for the series’ third season. The Morning Show women nominated for Outstanding Drama Series are Aniston, Witherspoon, showrunner Mimi Leder, Charlotte Stoudt, Kristin Hahn, Lauren Neustadter, Torrey Speer, Lindsey Springer, Mallory Schwartz, and Emily Ferenbach.
The Morning Show women who won prizes in the Creative Arts Emmy categories included these all-female teams: Cindy Williams, Liz Villamarin, Angela Levin, Tracey Levy, Keiko Wedding, and Amy Schmiederer, who won for Outstanding Contemporary Makeup (Non-Prosthetic); and Nicole Venables, Jennifer Petrovich, Janine Thompson, and Lona Vigi, who won for Outstanding Contemporary Hairstyling.
Other women from The Morning Show who received Primetime Emmy nominations for the ceremony were Leder (Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series); Lauree Martell (Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program [One Hour or More]); and Victoria Thomas (Outstanding Casting for Drama Series). Aniston and Witherspoon are contenders in the category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Marcia Gay Harden is a nominee for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. Meanwhile, The Morning Show has four nominees for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Nicole Beharie, Greta Lee, Karen Pittman, and Holland Taylor.
Aniston and Witherspoon gave some star/executive producer insight into The Morning Show during a December 2023 virtual press conference. Aniston commented on how The Morning Show is based on the realities of the TV news business: “It’s always exciting to do the show. There’s so much that happens in real time that our show is quickly kind of pulling from as the season goes. We’re so excited to tell stories [that show what goes on] behind the curtains, behind the scenes. You hear the real conversations, you see the real muck that goes on. There’s certainly a lot to mine from, in these days … We won’t have a lack of story, that’s for sure.”
Aniston noted that each season of The Morning Show has had storylines that were revised to reflect real-world social and political change: “It happened the first year with the #MeToo movement. It happened [in the] second season with COVID. And the third season with Roe v. Wade [being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court].”
Witherspoon added, “I think that’s one of the things that’s fascinating about the show. This year, we pulled back the curtains and started seeing more of our personal dynamics, but then, there’s always this urgency of the news. There’s this overlay that lands on top of the show: No matter what, the news goes on. It creates this momentum that we always have going. What I like about our show is that they pivot based on what they see happening in the world. There is already so much to address in the time span when we start again. … It’s an ever-evolving media landscape.
The creatives behind FX’s Shōgun series wanted to take an entirely different approach from that of NBC’s 1980 Shōgun miniseries, starring Richard Chamberlain as shipwrecked British sailor John Blackthorne. Both series take place in 17th century Japan and are based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel of the same name. Instead of telling the story mainly from the viewpoint of a white protagonist, FX’s Shōgun has more perspectives of Japanese people — particularly Lord Yoshii Toranaga (played by Hiroyuki Sanada) and Toda Mariko (played by Anna Sawai), who both encounter John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), a British maritime pilot major. The first season of the revamped Shōgun became a critical and commercial hit when it debuted in February 2024. Shōgun has been rewarded with 25 nominations for the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards, making Shōgun the leading contender with the most nominations for the ceremony.
Rachel Kondo (who co-created the revamped Shōgun with her husband, Justin Marks) has three nominations as an individual: Outstanding Drama Series and two separate nominations for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series: one for co-writing the “Anjin” episode with Marks, and the other for co-writing the “Crimson Sky” episode with Caillin Puente. Meanwhile, Sawai is nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
Women of Shōgun who won in Creative Arts Emmy categories include Maria Gonzales and Aika Miyake (Outstanding Picture Editing for a Drama Series); Ayako Yamauchi, Melissa Muik, and Sanaa Kelley (Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series [One Hour]); Laura Schiff, Carrie Audino, Kei Kawamura, Maureen Webb, and Colleen Bolton (Outstanding Casting for a Drama Series); Ashleigh Childer and Sallie Ciganovich (Outstanding Period or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Hairstyling); Laura Ballinger Gardner and Regina Graves (Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Period or Fantasy Program [One Hour or More]); Melody Mead and Chelsea Mirus (Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Season or a Movie); Nadia Tzuo (Outstanding Main Title Design); and Carole Griffin, Kristen Bond, and Paula Plachy (Outstanding Period Costumes for a Series).
For the category of Outstanding Period or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Makeup (Non-Prosthetic), the women winners are Rebecca Lee, Krystal Devlin, Amber Trudeau, Andrea Alcala, Leslie Graham, Krista Hann, and Emily Walsh. Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup female winners are Bree-Anna Lehto and Suzie Klimack. The women who won for Outstanding Period or Fantasy/Sci-Fi Hairstyling are Sanna Kaarina Seppanen, Mariah Crawley, Madison Gillespie, Nakry Keo, and Janis Bekkering. In addition, FX’s Shōgun – The Making of Shōgun won for Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series, whose women producer winners are Stephanie Gibbons, Sally Daws, Kenna McCabe, Melanie Pimentel, and Andie Newell.
At a February 2024 public Q&A for Shōgun, hosted by Japan Society in New York City, Kondo candidly spoke about how her Japanese American heritage affected her approach to the series and what she learned about Japanese culture: “Justin [Marks] came to the project with a lot of humility. I came to the project with a lot of hubris. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, this is the perfect chance for me to speak to my culture that I identify with the most. So cool. I’m excited. I’m going to have so much to say.’ But then, very quickly, I had to learn that you know it intellectually, but you have to spiritually accept that being Japanese American — especially being Japanese American born in Hawai’i — is a completely different thing from being from Japan.”
Kondo continued, “This is such a great chance to learn from the masters, learn from the experts, learn from the historians. It was a roundabout way to re-encounter and … make more dimensional my understanding of the culture I identify with. The most personal thing, for me, was the privilege of getting to work with Anna [Sawai] as she was learning the character of Lady Mariko over time. We would get into talks about what we were thinking about when we were writing this character. We got to shoot in sequence. I felt like with every episode, we became deeper and more closely connected to these characters.”
Kondo continued her high praise for Emmy-nominated Shōgun actress Sawai: “Anna is such a student of excellence. And she never stops asking questions. She extracted the inspiration out of me, which kind of circled back to my grandmother and her story. This is a woman who was born in a sugarcane plantation camp and was a maid her whole life and died quite young. And here she is getting to come back and inform a performance as spectacular as Anna’s. It’s all so surreal and gratifying.”
HBO’s Emmy-winning True Detective anthology series underwent a female-centric makeover for its fourth season, titled True Detective: Night Country, resulting in 19 nominations for the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards. Issa López took over the series as showrunner for True Detective: Night Country. She has since signed a multiyear overall deal with HBO to create content exclusive to HBO and Max, including the fifth season of True Detective.
True Detective: Night Country (which was filmed in Iceland and takes place in the remote fictional town of Ennis, Alaska) tells the story of police detectives Liz Danvers (played by Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (played by Kali Reis), who are investigating mysterious deaths. Foster is nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, while Reis is nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. Foster is one of the executive producers of True Detective: Night Country and is nominated along with López for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. The other women nominated in this category are Mari Jo Winkler-Ioffreda, Adele Romanski, Princess Daazhraii Johnson, Cathy Tagnak Rexford and Layla Blackman. López is also nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie
Other women nominees for True Detective: Night Country are Jo Riddell and Charlotte Dirickx (Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program [One Hour or More]); Francine Maisler, Deborah Schildt, and Alda B. Gudjónsdóttir (Outstanding Casting for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie); Alex Bovaird, Linda Gardar, Rebekka Jónsdóttir, Tina Ulee, and Giulia Moschioni (Outstanding Contemporary Costumes for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie); Brenna Rangott (Outstanding Picture Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie); Natalie Abizadeh, Kerry Skelton, Flóra Karítas Buenaño, and Hafdís Pálsdóttir (Outstanding Contemporary Makeup [Non-Prosthetic]); Lou Elsey (Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup); Susan Jacobs (Outstanding Music Supervision); and Rebecca Glover and Michele Woods (Outstanding Sound Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series, Movie or Special).
López and Foster talked about their work on True Detective: Night Country during a December 2023 press conference held in Los Angeles. López mentioned one of the ways that she wanted to make True Detective: Night Country different from previous True Detective seasons: “I said I would bring back the horror element. So, there is a little bit of it in this. There is a little bit of things that are older than the stars and the ice that are hiding and waiting in the dark. If you want to believe that. If not, it’s just a whodunit in the ice.”
Foster added that “this show does exist in genre, whether it’s a horror, supernatural, thriller genre. But so much of how that horror is explored is through the psychological drama, the intimate drama of these people. And that’s something that I loved about [this show], honestly, just because this is incredibly well-written. I think that’s the number-one reason for the characters’ brokenness … how the tapestry of the two of them [Liz Danvers and Evangeline Navarro] together in some ways and how they heal each other have this backdrop of psychological spiritual horror.”
Foster continued, “And then once again, set against this backdrop of the Alaskan traditions and our very centered Indigenous story. For me, and I think that’s true of the Alaskans that we’ve met as well. … They feel like we live with the dead as part of our culture in our lives every day. …That strength or that eeriness of that also contributes to kind of the depth of the show.”
López also discussed the importance of having Indigenous Americans as part of the True Detective: Night Country team of cast, crew, and consultants: “It’s just such an honor to be able to do something that has their faces and their stories in it. And they feel that they can see themselves in it.” Foster added, “And it’s not just one tired old story from a white lens of Indigenous victims. It really is a full modern understanding of who those people are.”
López commented on how True Detective: Night Country benefited from the series’ anthology format: “For me, it’s just a perfect way to tell a story. Because up until this point I had made only movies. And though I subscribe to the church of cinema, no doubt, this [TV series] was such a gorgeous discovery, in the sense of the size of the canvas with the depths that you can go with the characters when you have the space. The understanding of the world, the details. The pains that you can take to reveal things [are] such a luxury. … The structure of TV — good TV — is very specific and very different.”
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