Picture: FRAZER HARRISON / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
Dysfunctional family saga Succession on Monday took top honours for best drama at the Emmys, television’s biggest night of the year, as Squid Game made history when Lee Jung-jae was named best actor, a first for a non-English-language performer.
The South Korean social satire about misfits and criminals competing for cash in twisted versions of schoolyard games had also been in the running for the top prize, but the Netflix hit was bested by HBO’s latest awards darling.
Accepting the best drama award, Succession creator Jesse Armstrong noted it had been a big week for successions – a reference to the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the ascension to the British throne of her son.
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“Evidently (there’s) a little bit more voting involved in our winning than Prince Charles,” he quipped.
Succession, a Shakespearean drama about a family betraying each other for control of a media empire, led the nominations ahead of Monday’s gala with 25, winning four awards overall.
Other big winners on the night were fellow HBO stablemate The White Lotus, which won a total of 10 Emmys including best limited series, and Apple TV+ comedy favourite Ted Lasso, again a winner for best comedy and best actor Jason Sudeikis.
Lotus, a stylish satire on wealth and hypocrisy set in a luxury Hawaiian resort, scooped up two acting prizes as well as directing and writing honours, plus other technical awards.
The limited series award caps contenders at a single season, although The White Lotus is slightly bending the rules, having been recommissioned for a second go-around.
It beat out competition in the limited series category from shows recounting four real-life scandals, including Dopesick, a hard-hitting look at the US opioid crisis, and The Dropout, which recalls the Theranos fraud.
Michael Keaton and Amanda Seyfried won acting awards for their respective turns on Dopesick and The Dropout.
But Netflix’s Squid Game made a statement with its six Emmys – beyond Lee, the series won for best directing, best guest drama actress Lee Yoo-mi and three other technical categories.
The wins cement its place in the so-called Korean Wave of popular entertainment, with superstar boy band BTS sweeping the charts and Parasite winning the top Oscar in recent years.
The high glamour gala was a return to business as usual in Hollywood as the long awards season started with a bang for the first time in the stricter Covid-19 era.
The show at a downtown Los Angeles theatre was also the first major Hollywood awards ceremony since this year’s extraordinary Oscars, when Will Smith stunned the world by slapping Chris Rock over a joke about his wife.
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