Adam Scott, left, and Britt Lower in a scene from Severance on Apple TV+.The Associated Press
Severance separated itself from the field with 27 Emmy nominations Tuesday, while The Studio led comedy nominees with 23 in a dominant year for Apple TV+.
No other dramas came close to the dystopian workplace series Severance, which achieved a convergence of acclaim and audience buzz for its second season that brought an expected Emmy bounty.
Lead acting nominations came for Adam Scott and Britt Lower for what amounted to dual roles as their characters’ “innie” work selves and “outie” home selves. Tramell Tillman got a supporting nod for playing their tone-shifting, pineapple-wielding supervisor, and Patricia Arquette was nominated for supporting actress for playing an ousted outcast from the sinister family business at the center of the show. Ben Stiller got a directing nomination.
Meanwhile, Seth Rogen and Catherine O’Hara are among the Canadians racking up multiple Emmy nominations this year.
Both received nods for Rogen’s cringe comedy The Studio, which broke records Tuesday with 23 Emmy nominations – the most ever for a comedy series in its first season.
That beats the record set in 2021 by Ted Lasso, also from Apple, which scored 20 nominations in its debut year.
Rogen earned nominations for best lead actor in a comedy series, best directing and best writing.
The satire stars the B.C. native as the boss of a struggling Hollywood studio, juggling corporate pressures with his dream of making genuinely good movies.
Toronto’s O’Hara, meanwhile, earned two nominations – one as best supporting actress in The Studio, and another for a guest role in HBO zombie drama The Last of Us.
Rogen will compete in the lead actor category against Martin Short, who snagged a nomination for his role in Only Murders in the Building. The Hamilton, Ont. native plays frazzled theatre director Oliver Putnam in the Hulu comedy, starring opposite Steve Martin and Selena Gomez. This is the fourth time he’s received an Emmy nod for the role.
Martin Short, left, and Seth Rogen will compete for the Emmy for best lead actor in a comedy series.Reuters/Getty Image/Supplied
Quebec City’s Jessica Lee Gagné collected two nominations for her work on Severance. Gagné is up for best cinematography for an hour-long series, and best directing for a drama series.
Meanwhile, Toronto-born Saturday Night Live boss Lorne Michaels received six nominations for several incarnations of the sketch comedy series, including best writing for a variety series and best scripted variety series for NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
“SNL50: The Anniversary Special” is also in the running for best writing for a variety special and best live variety special.
Other Canadian nominees include Graham Yost, who earned a nod for best drama series as executive producer of spy thriller Slow Horses, and comic Robby Hoffman, who’s competing for outstanding guest actress in a comedy for her breakout role as an office manager in Hacks.
Catherine O'Hara stars in The Studio.Chris Pizzello/The Associated Press
The Studio was expected to make a big showing for its first season, but it romped over more established shows like Hacks, which got 14, and The Bear, which got 13.
And “The Studio” tied a record set by “The Bear” last year when it also got 23 nominations, the most ever for a comedy. Its A-list roster of guest stars brought in a bounty, with nominations for Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Bryan Cranston, Anthony Mackie, Dave Franco and Zoë Kravitz. The men made for five of the six nominees in the guest actor in a comedy category.
The Penguin, HBO’s dark drama from the Batman universe, was also surprisingly dominant in the limited series category with 24 nominations, including nods for leads Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti.
Netflix’s acclaimed Adolescence got 13 nominations, including a supporting actor nod for 15-year-old Owen Cooper, who plays a 13-year-old suspected of a killing.
HBO’s high-end soap The White Lotus got its usual flowering of drama acting nominations for its Thailand-set third season, with four cast members including Carrie Coon getting supporting actress nods, and three including Walton Goggins up for supporting actor. It was second in the drama categories to Severance with 23 nominations overall.
The Pitt, HBO Max’s prestige medical procedural starring ER veteran Noah Wyle, got 13 nominations, including best drama and best actor for its star, ER veteran Noah Wyle. One of its nurses, Katherine LaNasa, was able to squeeze in among the women of The White Lotus for a supporting actress nod.
The Last of Us brought in 16 nominations in drama categories for HBO. The elite cable channel with its streaming counterpart HBO Max has been so prolific for decades in Emmy nominations that it almost felt like an off year without it having a Succession or a Game of Thrones atop the drama category. But it definitely wasn’t. It led all outlets with 142 nominations, the most it’s ever gotten.
Netflix followed with 120 nominations overall, and Apple TV+ had 79.
Wyle, who was nominated five times without a win for ER, could join Scott to make best actor in a drama a two-man race, with both seeking their first Emmy.
Harvey Guillén and Brenda Song read the nominations in key categories.
See the list of key Emmy nominations
Severance has become a signature show for Apple TV+. The streamer has gotten plenty of Emmy nominations for dramas including The Morning Show and Slow Horses, and Ted Lasso was downright dominant on the comedy side.
But Apple has lacked the kind of breakaway prestige drama that HBO seems to produce perennially. That could change when the Emmys are handed out in September.
Severance got 14 nominations for its first season in 2023, but won just two, for its music and its title sequence.
All the shows are living in the splintered world of the streaming era, and the like the Oscars its most acclaimed nominees rarely have the huge audience they once did. While an impressive average of 10 million people per episode watched Wyle on The Pitt at some point on HBO Max, according to Warner Bros. Discovery, 30 years ago an average of 30 million sat down on the same night and watched him on ER on NBC.
The broadcast networks have largely become Emmy non-entities, with a few shining exceptions. ABC’s Abbott Elementary has annually drawn plenty of comedy nominations and should get its share this year. And Oscar-winner Kathy Bates is a front-runner for the best actress in a comedy Emmy for her role on CBS’s Matlock. She was the first person nominated in the category from a network show since 2019, and would be the first to win it since 2015.
CBS will air the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on Sept. 14. Nate Bargatze is slated to host.
With files from The Canadian Press