HBO won a total of 34 Emmy Awards last night (and over the last two weeks), they’re still the king of the hill despite efforts by Netflix and Amazon and none by their old rival, Showtime.
The cable giant threw a pageant worthy of royals at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles right now. I ran into Sophie Turner, aka Sansa Stark of “Game of Thrones,” amid the madness of more than a thousand guests including casts from her show, “Veep,” “Chernobyl,” “Sharp Objects,” “Succession,” and “Barry.”
Now that her character’s been ruling the north for some months, I asked her — cheekily — how it’s going. “It’s going great,” she said, with a big smiles. “The dragons are gone, it’s pretty calm. Everyone’s getting along!” Turner was without a date, she said, because newish husband Joe Jonas was just flying in that evening from the rock-pop world. There was much cheering around her in the “GoT” area, with best supporting actor winner Peter Dinklage sans epaulets and just in a T shirt accepting compliments and drinking Champagne with show creators DB Weiss and David Benioff. When I observed to Benioff that everything had worked out like it was supposed to, he said, “It almost didn’t. For a minute there, I was scared!”
There indeed had been a lot of surprises among the winners. “Veep” and Julia Louis Dreyfus were supposed to have won, but were beaten by It girl of the night Phoebe Waller Bridges, and “Fleabag.” Was JLD disappointed? “Oh, I don’t care!” Julia said. “I love Fleabag. What can you do? We’ve won a lot of awards!”
In the swirl of actors, writers, and directors I chatted with some of the best talent in Hollywood including Vera Farmiga, Jared Harris, Patricia Clarkson, Henry Winkler, Dule Hill, and “Succession” showrunner and Emmy winner Jesse Armstrong. Just to show you where HBO goes now that “GoT” and “Veep” are gone, “Succession” is about to breakout big time. Next September, watch, that show will be all the rage, sweeping the awards (along with more “Barry,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Big Little Lies,” and so on).
