CELEBRITIES
Early Emmys honor ‘Maisel,’ ‘Thrones,’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’
LOS ANGELES — Bradley Whitford and Cherry Jones received trophies for their roles in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and Jane Lynch and Luke Kirby won on the comedy side, both for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” during the creative arts Emmy ceremony Sunday night.
“Game of Thrones” led with 10 Emmys in technical and other categories at the two-night weekend ceremony, which is the precursor to the main Emmy Awards that will air Sunday on Fox.
“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was the top comedy series winner, with six awards.
Jones heaped praise backstage on fellow nominee Phylicia Rashad (“This Is Us”), calling it “absurd” that Rashad has yet to win an Emmy despite four nominations, and saluted Cicely Tyson, nominated for “How to Get Away with Murder.”
Whitford struck a political note as he thanked Margaret Atwood for the titular novel that is the basis of the dystopian “The Handmaid’s Tale”: She is “giving us perspective in this disorienting moment as we are inundated and undermined by a misogynistic, radical, right-wing ideology,” he said. “She understands three things: Despair is not an option. Our children can’t afford it. Action is the antidote to despair.”
Lynch said she based her portrayal of a 1950s comic on the women she grew up watching.
“I went right to the source: Phyllis Diller, Totie Fields, Moms Mabley,” she said. “Back then, in order for a woman to be in comedy, she had to have a gimmick. Usually that meant cracking wise about her own looks, her bad body, how she can’t hold on to a man ... but these women did it with such panache and style and such self-possession, and they inspire me.”
— Associated Press