LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Latest on the Emmy Awards (all times local):
5:20 p.m.
The Emmy for best supporting actor in a limited series goes to Murray Bartlett for “The White Lotus.”
It’s the first Emmy and first nomination for the 51-year-old Australian actor.
In “The White Lotus” he plays an initially mild-mannered concierge at a Hawaiian Resort who is driven to drugs and madness by the guests he must cater to.
“Thank you for giving me one of the best experiences of my life,” Bartlett said from the stage to series creator Mike White, who was caught by the camera mid-gulp from a glass of wine.
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HIGHLIGHTS AT THE EMMYS
— Elle Fanning Old Hollywood for Emmys, others in red zone
— Peak TV bonanza complicates Emmy goal of honoring the best
— Emmys host Kenan Thompson predicts conflict-free ceremony
— AP Emmy pundits call a win for ‘Succession,’ split on comedy
— Find more AP coverage here: https://apnews.com/hub/emmy-awards
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MORE EMMY DEVELOPMENTS:
5:15 p.m.
The Emmy for best actor in a limited series goes to Michael Keaton for “Dopesick.”
The first award handed out Monday night was the first ever Emmy for Keaton, the 71-year-old former “Batman” actor who was nominated for an Oscar in 2015 for his role in “Birdman.”
“I’ve got to tell you, my face hurts so much from all the fake smiling I’ve been doing,” Keaton said after accepting the trophy from the first presenter, Oprah Winfrey.
“You’ve got about 90 of these, don’t you?” he asked her.
In Hulu’s “Dopesick,” Keaton plays Samuel Finnix, a doctor on the frontlines of America’s battle with opioid addiction.
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5:10 p.m.
Host Kenan Thompson has kicked off the 74th Emmy Awards in a top hat and tails.
“It is I, the mayor of television,” Thompson said as he walked among the nominees and other audience members seated at tables in a garden setting at the Microsoft Theater on Monday night in downtown Los Angeles.
“Tonight, we come together to honor the greatest invention in the history of mankind, television,” the longtime “Saturday Night Live” cast member said. “If it weren’t for television, what would we do with our time? Read books? No one in this room has read a book in the last 50 years.”
He then led a crew through a series of synchronized dance moves to TV theme songs including “Friends,” “Game of Thrones,” “The Brady Bunch” and “Law & Order.”
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5 p.m.
Nominees and the rest of the Emmy Awards audience are making their way into the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles with the show just minutes away.
The room is set up like a garden, with most of the theater’s orchestra seats removed and replaced by dozens of tables for nominees and their guests. Window panels provided a view of the LA skyline, and six large trees framed the perimeter of the room. From the ceiling hung tiny white lights, intermixed with ferns.
There is none of the social distancing that marked last year’s pandemic-limited show.
“This bar right here is not real. This is a set. Do night touch this,” producer-writer Chris Spencer told the audience as he announced the rules for the show before the telecast began. A full, and fake, bar ceiling high is set up behind one of the stages.
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4:30 p.m.
Ben Stiller isn’t worried about being banned from Russia.
“I’ll take it,” the actor-director told The Associated Press on the Emmys carpet ahead of Monday’s ceremony. “It’s all right.”
“I’m a Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR,” Stiller said referencing the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. “There’s over 100 million displaced people all over the world. So all of those people deserve a right to a home and be able to go back home and to be welcomed.”
Stiller was responding to a question about a move by Russia last week to sanction 25 Americans, including him and actor Sean Penn.
Penn and Stiller have been outspoken critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Penn is an activist involved in relief work, among other causes.
— Jill Dobson at the Emmy Awards.
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4:15 pm.
Nominee Sheryl Lee Ralph of “Abbott Elementary” had a fashion faux pas before ever arriving at the Emmys.
“A designer gave my co-star and me the same sketch for the same gown,” she said, having discovered it on set when Lisa Ann Walter showed Ralph what she was wearing to the awards.
“Up until five days ago I had no gown so Brandon Blackwood stepped up. He was in Japan and started rendering the gown on his Pacific flight,” Ralph said.
Ralph was resplendent in a black velvet strapless gown with orange underside and a slit to her upper thigh. She carried a tiny orange purse.
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3:50 p.m.
How hot is it on the Emmys gold carpet? So hot that suit-clad men are pushing a wheeled cooler full of bottled water along the carpet, moving deftly between the logjam of sweating stars and stopping frequently to grab and pass out the cool beverages. Stars are sipping the water through straws.
Kerry Washington wore a small dress but a long train, with her hair pulled up and away from her face. Emmys host Kenan Thompson moved quickly along the carpet, making his way inside the Microsoft Theater to prepare for the show. “Sorry, we can’t stop,” a handler called out as a somber Thompson strode by.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” actor Cynthia Addai-Robinson is at her first Emmys. Masks aren’t required but COVID-19 testing was.
“I think people are hungry for celebration. I know I am. We’re still getting used to gathering and getting together,” she said.
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3:30 p.m.
A blast from TV’s past hit the Emmy Awards gold carpet.
Eve Plumb and Christopher Knight, who played siblings Jan and Peter on “The Brady Bunch,” walked the carpet together.
“We’re very surprised and very happy,” Plumb said of being asked to appear on the telecast.
“And honored,” Knight added.
Their show, which lives in reruns, was on TV in the early 1970s when there were only three channels, quite a contrast from today’s streaming services.
“I don’t think it just serves one audience. It speaks to many,” Knight said. “You have that much more opportunity to catch up 10 years later on something and become a huge fan. Because of streaming there’ll be huge successes of old content.”
— Beth Harris (@BethHarrisAP) at the Emmys
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3 p.m.
“Severance” star Britt Lower is among the early arrivals at the Emmy Awards, wearing a glittery venetian beaded gown with matching elbow length gloves.
“It felt like I wanted to wear outer space. I have an appreciation for fabrics, my mom was a home economics teacher. I feel great in it,” she said.
Stars are beginning to arrive in downtown Los Angeles on a sweltering afternoon. Temperatures are in the lower 80s but it’s unseasonably humid due to remnants of tropical storm that blew through over the weekend.
Early arrivals included actor and writer Natasha Rothwell, actor Tony Shalhoub and actor Laura Linney.
Comedian Emily Heller had fun posing for the cameras, turning her back to reveal she was wearing a “Kick Me” sign on her back and had paper stuck to her shoe.
— Beth Harris (@bethharrisAP) at the Emmy Awards
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1 p.m.
Emmy Awards host Kenan Thompson and the ceremony’s producers are promising a feel-good event — a phrase not applicable to several of the top nominated shows.
The best drama contenders include the violently dystopian “Squid Game,” bleak workplace satire “Severance” and “Succession,” about a powerful and cutthroat family. Even comedy nominee “Ted Lasso,” the defending champ, took a storytelling dark turn.
But after several pandemic-constrained awards seasons, Monday’s 74th Primetime Emmy Awards (airing 8 p.m. EDT on NBC, streaming on Peacock) will be big and festive, executive producers Reginald Hudlin and Ian Stewart said.
They’re actually taking a page from last year’s scaled-down ceremony and its club-style table seating for nominees.
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