Los Angeles: Breaking its four-year-old jinx, fantasy epic “Game of Thrones” bagged the outstanding drama gong at the 2015 Emmy Awards, along with three other honours, tying with “Veep” whose trophies included the outstanding comedy series.
“Game of Thrones”, HBO’s darling series, was a favourite this year as it bagged nods in all the 24 nominations. Since its first season in 2011, the globally popular series has been in the outstanding drama race at the Emmys but failed to taste success until this time.
It defeated biggies like “Better Call Saul”, “Downton Abbey”, “Homeland”, “House of Cards”, “Mad Men” and “Orange is the New Black” to bag the coveted trophy.
The other three major awards for the show came courtesy Peter Dinklage’s performance as Tyrion Lannister, winning him best supporting actor in a drama series, creators David Benioff and DB Weiss’s work earning them best writing and helmer David Nutter bagging the outstanding directing honour.
Benioff and Weiss thanked the show’s cast and crew and HBO for taking a chance on them and “believing in dragons.”
Dinklage said he did not have anything prepared and gave a shout-out to the other nominees — particularly Better Call Saul’s Jonathan Banks, who was the odds-on favourite to win.
Backstage, the showrunners were asked by reporters why Thrones finally won this year.
“We knew that there would be some resistance at first to a show set in this genre… We knew it would take a while,” Benioff said.
“But we’d hoped if we did our jobs and if we were fortunate enough to be blessed with the cast and crew that we were blessed with and if we got lucky, that we’d get there eventually.”
The series has beaten 1999 serial political drama “West Wing” for the most Emmy wins for a TV series in a single year.
HBO struck gold at Emmys as besides becoming the best comedy series, its show “Veep” swept awards in categories– outstanding lead actress for Julia Louis-Dreyfus, outstanding supporting actor for Tony Hale, outstanding writing for Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche.
For his portrayal of Don Draper, the creative director of an advertisement agency, in period drama “Mad Men”, Jon Hamm took home the trophy for outstanding actor in a drama series.
While Viola Davis bagged the outstanding actress in a drama series award for “How to Get Away With Murder”, becoming the first African-American woman to receive an Emmy.
Actor Jeffrey Tambor won the outstanding lead actor in a comedy series for his performance on “Transparent”. Uzo Aduba bagged the outstanding supporting actress in a drama series honour for her work in “Orange Is the New Black”.
Allison Janney bagged the outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for “Mom”. HBO’s “Olive Kitteridge” won the outstanding miniseries award and also three other honours.
The 67th annual Primetime Emmy Awards took place at the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
