Sandra Oh has made history as the first Asian woman to be nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series category for her role in the BBC America series Killing Eve, Los Angeles Times writer Glenn Whipp reports on Twitter.
She’s among good company, too. The other women nominated in her category include Elisabeth Moss for The Handmaid’s Tale, Keri Russell for The Americans, Evan Rachel Wood for Westworld, Claire Foy for The Crown, and Tatiana Maslany for Orphan Black.
If you haven’t seen the show yet—and if so, what are you waiting for?—Killing Eve revolves around a bored MI5 officer in London (Oh) who wishes she could do more with her career than shuffle around papers and collect data at her desk. Her in-the-field dreams are soon granted when she becomes embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game with a British female assassin, and their mutual obsession with each other propels the eight-episode drama. But if you don’t like murders and violence, also know it’s one of the most fashionable shows of the year, too.
PHOTO: BBC AMERICA/AMC Networks
As Vanity Fair notes, Oh has had success with Emmy nominations in the past, so this isn’t her first rodeo with the honor. You might remember her years-long tenure as Dr. Cristina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy, for which she received five consecutive supporting actress nominations. (She never won, sadly.)
Shockingly, if Oh were to win for Killing Eve at the September ceremony, she would become only the third Asian actor to take home an Emmy, according to Vanity Fair. The two previous winners of Asian descent are Archie Panjabi, who won a supporting actress Emmy in 2010 for The Good Wife, and Riz Ahmed, who won for lead actor in a drama in 2017, for The Night Of.
Betty Gilpin pulls a lot of faces as Debbie “Liberty Belle” Eagan, a former soap star turned campy stars-and-stripes-clad wrestling heroine on GLOW, Netflix’s comedy about a ’80s female wrestling league that’s back for a second season. (Caution: Spoilers for the season ahead.) There’s one in particular that pops up most frequently: a manic beauty-pageant smile so big you can see her molars that teeters on the edge for a few seconds before fading into a grimace.
Sometimes it’s obvious, like in the season two show-within-a-show episode “The Good Twin,” when Liberty Belle, in mourning over her kidnapped daughter Savannah Rose, hosts a “Griefercize” class to “sweat those sorrows away.” She ends the segment by bending over, positioning her head in between her legs, and turning that crazed grin into a silent scream.
Other times it’s more subtle—if you can call anything a pro wrestler with a pound and a half of eye makeup and a costume Gilpin describes as a “glitter diaper” does “subtle”—like when she alternates between a plastered-on smile and a wince while singing the group’s “We Are the World”-style song “Don’t Kidnap.”
Liberty Belle is obviously played for laughs; Gilpin’s unafraid to go as big as possible with her, to the point where you start to feel for her cheek muscles. But she also employs a more toned-down version of the smile/frown twofer out of the ring as Debbie throughout season two. When Debbie runs into her ex-husband, Mark, and his new girlfriend, Susan, she’s all passive-aggressive smiles as she says, “I just would love the pleasure of knowing the name of the woman you have spending time with our son.”
Once she realizes Susan is also Mark’s secretary, you can see in her eyes that she’s thrown and her grin gets a little tighter. She presses on, though, cracking a joke before excusing herself and leaving. The second her back is to them, she drops the smile with the same speed and efficiency she uses to lay out opponents in the ring—only this time, she’s the one who looks like she’s just been clotheslined.
PHOTO: Erica Parise/Netflix
That forced smile is a testament to Gilpin’s skill as an actor. And when this year’s Emmy nominations are announced on July 12, there’s a strong chance her name could be read. The potential nod would actually be honoring her work in season one (because of the eligibility period), which was excellent, but it’s the show’s second season that really showcases her outstanding work. Gilpin excels as both Liberty Belle and Debbie, as the character grows more self-assured professionally despite her personal life unraveling.
Part of Debbie-as-Liberty Belle’s confidence is the result of more wrestling experience, and season two gives us even more difficult moves and matches. Liberty Belle, as GLOW’s most popular face, is in the ring more than anyone else, even going toe-to-toe with Chavo Guerrero Jr. of the legendary Guerrero wrestling family (in character as Chico Guapo). The tragedy of Debbie and the comedy of Liberty Belle—who, after hip-tossing Chico Guapo, lets out a triumphant growl and tells the crowd in her Southern drawl, “I’ve been baking pies at home. PIES OF RAGE!!!”—have always been front-and-center, but this season it’s obvious Gilpin is pulling triple-duty with the character as her stunts (which she and the rest of her costars do themselves) get more elaborate.
Her character wears multiple hats this season, too. Debbie leverages her star power in the ring into a producer role on the show. She’s the only cast member who even attempts to negotiate the terms of her contract, and she does so in the most Debbie way possible: in her wrestling costume, with her ex-husband—who is an agent but not, as she’s careful to point out, her agent—in tow to go over the terms of the deal.
She knows the games she has to play as a woman in Hollywood in the ’80s, but she still goes out of her way to bring a copy of the contract for the network head’s wife, smiling as she says, “I’m sure you don’t expect your wife to sit here looking pretty while we do business. She might have some great ideas.” She doesn’t bother with that cheery facade later when she presents the contract to Sam (Marc Maron). When he incredulously asks, “You want to be a producer?” she corrects him: “Oh, no. I am a producer.”
PHOTO: Netflix
In many ways, Debbie and her friend turned enemy Ruth (Alison Brie) are two sides of the same coin. They’re both highly ambitious women in an era when being one was difficult. Their fractured friendship, the result of Ruth sleeping with Mark in the show’s first season, is the heart of this second batch of episodes. When Ruth tells Debbie about the head of the network coming on to her in his hotel room—a “Me Too” moment that feels ripped from the headlines until you remember stuff like that has been happening since the beginning of time—she’s shocked when she doesn’t get sympathy.
Instead, Debbie blames their show’s cancellation on Ruth’s decision to flee. “You’re supposed to make him think that you might fuck him. Or that you desperately want to fuck him if only you didn’t have your fiancé or your period or an extra set of teeth where your vagina should be,” she says. “That’s how this business works. Men try shit, you have to pretend to like it until you don’t have to anymore.”
It’s a complex reaction, but Gilpin plays on that, making it apparent Debbie doesn’t fully believe what she’s saying and growing increasingly upset until she reveals the more personal motivation behind her feelings, spitting, “The one time you keep your legs shut, we all get fucked.”
Debbie loses her shit and take things too far lot this season, like when she impulsively sells all the furniture in her home after finding out Mark wants to buy the same bed they used to share. But it’s most affecting when it’s directed at Ruth, and all of the moments of Debbie falling apart come to a head when, coked up and upset about her divorce, she intentionally breaks Ruth’s ankle in the ring. Because she goes so big as Liberty Belle, the quietness that Gilpin brings to Debbie in the moments after the injury—the dead-eyed calm as she washes away her sins in the shower while the rest of her castmates rush to the hospital with Ruth—is stunning.
It all builds to the season’s climax, an emotional, ugly fight between Ruth and Debbie in the hospital that features some of the best work from both Gilpin and Brie. Debbie enters timidly but unwilling to admit her faults; when Ruth doesn’t buy that the broken ankle was an accident, Gilpin masterfully shifts gears, calmly and quietly stating “It was an accident, Ruth” before looking over her shoulder, pausing for dramatic effect, and yelling “…unlike the time when you accidentally fucked my husband twice!”
But this side of Debbie disappears as the fight goes on and she realizes she was in the wrong. She storms out crying before returning later with a peace offering: a change of clothes so Ruth doesn’t have to leave the hospital in costume. She can’t bring herself to actually say the words, but she writes “Sorry I broke your ankle” on Ruth’s cast. In this moment, Gilpin executes a subtle version of her signature move: a tiny smile that eventually curves downward and disappears as she wipes away a tear.
It’s a moment so tender it will break your heart—and it confirms what we’ve known since this show premiered: We’ll be baking our own pies of rage if that’s not enough to earn her an Emmy.
Bonnie Stiernberg is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York.
Before the 2017 Emmy Awards even started, it was getting props for its diversity. Never had there been so many nominated shows starring people of color, like “Master of None,” “Atlanta,” “Black-ish,” and series about pressing women’s issues, like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and” Big Little Lies.”
And they didn’t disappoint: it was a ground-breaking night, thanks to actress and writer Lena Waithe, the first-ever Black woman to win an Emmy for “Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series” for co-writing an episode of “Master of None” with Aziz Ansari.
In her acceptance speech, Waithe shouted out the LGTBQIA+ community, thanking them for showing up in the world each day with a touching tribute.
“I see each and every one of you. The things that make us different, those are our superpowers. Every day when you walked out the door, put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world. Because the world would not be as beautiful as it is if we weren’t in it.”
Earlier in the night, Donald Glover became the first-ever Black person to win an Emmy for “Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series” in the show’s 69-year history as the director of “Atlanta”:
(Glover also took home Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series later in the show.)
The show had kickass moments, like, when “Insecure” star Issa Rae showed her love for her fellow African American Emmy nominees in a red carpet interview what became the night’s most GIF-able moment. When asked by a reporter, “Who are you rooting for tonight?”, Rae replied, “I’m rooting for everybody black.”
Laura Dern took home the Emmy for Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her role in “Big Little Lies” and thanked other women in Hollywood for bringing her there—but by highlighting their absence throughout much of her long career. “I’ve been acting since I was 11-years-old and I’ve worked with, like, 12 women.” (Dern also shouted out her “Little Big Lies” co-stars, gushing, “I share this with my tribe of four ladies.”)
And when “Big Little Lies” won for Outstanding Limited Series, it was an opportunity for stars Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman“ to urge Hollywood to give complicated women their due on-screen. “Bring women to the front of their own stories,” Reese Witherspoon said.
Now that another ceremony is behind us, we’ll see whether Hollywood stays committed to providing opportunities for writers, actors, directors, and other artists with stories that might not have been told a few years ago.
Sometimes, if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself. And according to Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, that’s exactly what they did when they signed on to produce and star in HBO’s Big Little Lies.
At the 2017 Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday night, the show took home the award for Outstanding Limited Series, and Kidman and Witherspoon stepped up to give an empowering acceptance speech in honor of their women-centered show. After doling out the requisite thank-yous to the network and other powers that be, Witherspoon sent her thanks to Liane Moriarty, “who wrote the bestselling book and created these characters who are so memorable.” She added: “It has been an incredible year for women. Can I just say bring women to the front of their own stories, and make them the hero of their own stories.” Then she cried out, “Oh my gosh, Nicole, help!”
Kidman continued the speech, saying, “Thank you to the people that embraced this, the power of television. It has astounded us that we entered into your living rooms and people talked about it. And as much as the show had entertainment value, it was also about issues. We are so grateful that you told your friends to watch the show,” she said.
The Australia-born actress, who had beat Witherspoon only minutes before to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie, finished on a powerful note in which she referenced her close relationship with Witherspoon. “This is a friendship that then created opportunities. It created opportunities out of a frustration, because we weren’t getting offered great roles,” Kidman, 50, said. “So now, more great roles for women, please.”
Witherspoon, 41, has spoken out time and again about the need for more complex roles for women in television and movies. Most recently, she penned an essay for Glamour in which she encouraged women to embrace their ambition and discussed her own efforts to share the stories of diverse women. “Today I have something like 23 projects in the works driven by great female characters of different ages and races. There is a film about an astronaut, a film about the entrepreneur who invented Barbie, and a film about the young, brave American girls who were the first women to serve alongside Special Ops in 2010 in Afghanistan,” she wrote. “All we can do to create change is work hard. That’s my advice: Just do what you do well.” She added, “If you are one of those people who has that little voice in the back of her mind saying, ‘Maybe I could do [fill in the blank],’ don’t tell it to be quiet. Give it a little room to grow, and try to find an environment it can grow in.”
Did you catch Ben Affleck at the 2017 Emmy Awards? No? That’s because he was busy being a dutiful plus-one to his new girlfriend Lindsay Shookus, who is a producer on Saturday Night Live.
While Affleck is used to being front and center at awards shows—typically as a nominee, winner, or just an A-list celeb—he took a backseat at this year’s Emmys and let Shookus have her shine. That included Affleck not walking the red carpet, following Shookus’ lead backstage, and even holding her clutch for her (as all supportive partners should), according to E! Live From the Red Carpet. And as it turns out, Shookus needed her hands free later on to accept her Emmy win, along with the rest of the SNL crew, for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series.
Affleck also practiced being Shookus’ No. 1 fan, causing a small scene when SNL was announced the Emmy winner. “He jumped up and cheered when SNL won,” a witness told Us Weekly. After the win, the two were “holding hands and whispering and smiling,” according to the same onlooker.
Another stealthy attendee captured the duo walking backstage together, with Affleck clearly letting Shookus take the lead (it was her night, after all).
And if Affleck’s goal was to not to steal any attention away from his new girlfriend, the strategy worked relatively well—as the live telecast never once panned to the actor in his 15th row seat. Instead, viewers were left only with a brief glimpse of the two in the background as Lorne Michaels stood to accept his award.
Shookus and Affleck have reportedly been dating since July, and were most recently spotted attending the U.S. Open men’s final last weekend. Neither have commented on the new relationship—but we’ll let Affleck’s actions do the talking.
The 2017 Emmy Awards was an amazing night for women—both in front of and behind the camera. Not only were a slew of female-fronted and created TV shows nominated, they actually won. Several times over. Hulu’s searing drama series The Handmaid’s Tale and HBO’s Big Little Lies especially emerged as the powerhouses of the evening, each taking home eight awards.
But it’s not just the amount of awards won that made tonight’s Emmys so special. The show broke some major new ground, too. Julia Louis-Dreyfus made Emmys history by becoming the first performer to win six Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series awards for the same character (Selina Meyer in Veep). Lena Waithe, who plays a queer woman of color on Master of None, is now the first Black woman in history to win the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series. Also incredible: Reed Morano is the first woman in 22 years to win for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series for The Handmaid’s Tale.
Tonight was also trailblazing for the types of female-fronted content honored. Every series responsible for tonight’s resurgence of girl power—from Handmaid‘s to Big Little Lies to Veep—features nuanced characters and narratives about women’s experiences that haven’t been fully explored. Domestic abuse, sexism in Hollywood, the patriarchy, misogyny—all of these very real issues received proper representation. We’re finally seeing women on TV with full complexity and humanity.
It’s a welcome change from the two-dimensional wives and girlfriends of TV past. As the world progresses, Hollywood is finally starting to realize women and men want to watch stories about real people—their struggles, their triumphs, their fears. For female-fronted shows, the best way to do this is by putting women at the helm of projects. As Reese Witherspoon said during her acceptance speech for Outstanding Limited Series (Big Little Lies), it’s time to let women be the heroes of their own stories.
Tonight’s sweep should also open up Hollywood’s eyes to how lucrative female-oriented TV shows and films can be. The Handmaid’s Tale and Big Little Lies were two of the most-talked about new shows this year. This buzz turned into viewers, which has now turned into multiple Emmy wins. And money! If Hollywood doesn’t take this as a sign that women’s entertainment is mainstream—and not niche—then there’s a major problem.
The Handmaid’s Tale is coming back for a second season, and there’s talk of a Big Little Lies season two (fingers crossed), but hopefully these aren’t the only female-fronted shows we’re talking about next year. There are so many more stories to explore, and tonight’s Emmys prove people very much want to come along for those rides. Cheers to that.
