Naomi Watts, Elizabeth Debicki lead Aussie Emmy nominations

Australian actor Naomi Watts leads Australia’s nominations for the 76th annual Emmy Awards, recognised for her stunning performance as American socialite Babe Paley in the critically acclaimed Feud: Capote vs The Swans.

She is joined by Elizabeth Debicki, who is nominated in the supporting actress category, for her performance as Diana, Princess of Wales, in Netflix’s drama The Crown.

Naomi Watts and Elizabeth Debicki are leading Australia’s nominations in this year’s Emmy’s Awards.

The nominations for what will be this year’s second Emmy awards (more on that in a moment) were a mix of familiar faces and arrivistes, ranging from category stalwarts such as Saturday Night Live and RuPaul’s Drag Race, to brassy newcomers like Baby Reindeer and Shōgun.

Australian creative directors Patrick Clair and Raoul Marks were nominated three times in the same category – main title design – for their work on the Amazon series Fallout, Apple TV’s Silo and the Netflix drama 3 Body Problem.

And while it is technically not an Australian production, Bravo’s Below Deck Down Under, which was filmed in Australia, was nominated in the unstructured reality program category. In the same category: the US adaptation of the Australian series Love on the Spectrum, produced by the Australian production company Northern Pictures.

Australian producer Emile Sherman is also nominated, as one of the producers of Slow Horses, the British spy thriller series. Slow Horses was produced by the Australian-British production company See-Saw Films and has nominations in a raft of categories including casting, writing and directing.

FX’s Shogun has 25 nominations spread across the primetime and creative arts categories.

Shogun is the most nominated program, with 25 nominations spread across the primetime and creative arts categories. The Bear came in second with 23. The other leading contenders include Only Murders in the Building (21 nominations), True Detective: Night Country (19), The Crown (18) and Saturday Night Live (17).

A total of 229 series were submitted into the three top categories: drama, comedy and limited or anthology series. That represents a drop from the 309 submitted for the last Emmys, a reflection of the slowdown in TV program launches in the wake of industrial action which paralysed Hollywood for much of 2024.

The 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, scheduled for September, will be the second Emmys held this year. Last year’s awards, delayed by the writers and actors strikes that brought film and television production in Hollywood to a halt for most of 2023, were held in January.

Australian actor Sarah Snook was one of the key winners in the January ceremony, collecting an Emmy for her performance as Shiv Roy in Succession. Two other television series, The Bear and Beef, also swept those awards.

Sarah Snook won the award for outstanding lead actress in a drama series for Succession.Credit: AP

The upcoming awards cover programming that aired in the US between June, 2023, and May, 2024.

Though television’s awards season is a little patchier than the film award season which leads to the Oscars each year, there is one early indicator of how this year’s Emmys may go.

The 40th annual Television Critics Association awards, held last week in Los Angeles, poured most of their focus on Hacks (outstanding achievement in comedy), Shogun (drama) and Baby Reindeer (movie, miniseries or special). There seems little doubt that those three shows will also claim a large slice of the Emmy buzz pie.

The creative arts Emmys are held the week before the primetime Emmys, and cover almost 100 categories, including visual effects, picture and sound editing, lighting design, music, cinematography, choreography, casting and art direction.

The primetime Emmys honour acting, writing, directing and key program categories: comedy, drama, limited series, reality competition, scripted variety and talk show.

The winners are voted for by the approximately 24,000 members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS).

The winners of the Creative Arts Emmys will be announced on September 8 and 9, Australian time. The winners of the 75th annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be announced on September 16, Australian time.