Shogun won the most Emmys ever for a single season of a television series with 14 at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, while The Bear won seven including best guest actress in a comedy series for Jamie Lee Curtis.
Presenters were saying Shogun all night at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on the second night of the two-night Creative Arts Emmys, where awards are handed out that don’t quite make the main Primetime Emmys ceremony. It broke the record of 13 set by the 2008 limited series John Adams before even reaching the September 15 main Emmys ceremony, when it can pad its record with up to five more.
Shogun, the FX series about political machinations in feudal Japan, won all but two of the possible 16 trophies it could have claimed on Sunday night (local time), including Emmys for costumes, makeup, editing, stunts and cinematography, along with a best guest actor in a drama Emmy for Néstor Carbonell.
As he accepted, Carbonell thanked the crew, then marvelled at how many of them were in the audience.
“You’re all here! You’re all nominated!” Carbonell said. “I love the team sport of this.”
Curtis was emotional on stage after winning her first Emmy 18 months after winning her first Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
“I’m the luckiest girl in the world,” Curtis said backstage. “I just never thought I would get to do work at this level of depth and complexity and intelligence. It’s been the thrill of my creative life these last couple of years.”
Asked if she could win a Grammy and a Tony to make it an EGOT, she said no way.
“I can’t sing at all,” she said, “and I’ve never been on stage”.
The songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, however, did become the 20th and 21st members of the elite EGOT club when they won their first Emmy for a song they co-wrote for Only Murders in the Building. The duo had previously won an Oscar for La La Land and a Grammy and Tony for Dear Evan Hansen.
Curtis won for the season two Bear episode Fishes, in which she played the mother of star Jeremy Allen White at a nightmare holiday family gathering. Jon Bernthal, who played White’s big brother in the episode, won best guest actor in a comedy.
Michaela Coel won best guest actress in a comedy series for her appearance on Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Shogun shook up the Emmys race when it switched from the limited series to the drama series category in May and led all nominees with 25 when nominations were announced in July.
It won so steadily that the few who beat it — it lost only in two music-composition categories — felt the need to comment on it.
“I didn’t write a speech, because there was no way I was beating ‘Shogun’ tonight,” said Siddharta Khosa, who won best music composition for a series for Only Murders in the Building.
When Eric Andŕe was asked only one question in the media room after winning his first Emmy for his performance on his self-titled talk show, he said, with fake exasperation, “Sorry I’m not on Shogun!”
Maya Rudolph and Angela Bassett were among the Creative Arts winners on Saturday night, which focused on reality and variety TV. Rudolph won her sixth career Emmy, for her voice-over work on the animated Big Mouth. Bassett won her first, for her narration of the National Geographic wildlife documentary series Queens.
Both nights of the show will be edited into a single two-and-a-half hour show that will air on FXX on September 14 and stream the following day on Hulu.
Dan and Eugene Levy will host the Primetime Emmy Awards, also at the Peacock Theater, airing on ABC on September 15.
