Deadline Hatfields & McCoys

Anthony D’Alessandro is managing editor of AwardsLine

REFRESH FOR LATEST… 

Drama Series
Boardwalk Empire
“I’m enormously pleased and proud of our nominations, especially this year. Perhaps at no other time in television history has the competition in the drama category been so fierce. The fact that we’ve been recognized is a testament to the talent of our incredible cast and crew”. — creator/executive producer Terence Winter

Downton Abbey
“It is a great honour and tremendously exciting to find our show on the list for this year’s Emmy ceremony. The very steep competition can only be considered a compliment, since they are all fantastic programs, and I hope they are as happy as I am, celebrating their nominations”. — creator/writer/executive producer Julian Fellowes

“The Emmys aren’t well known in Great Britain as the BAFTAs, but within the industry, they’re considered the preeminent TV awards. What (our nominations) mean for us is that Downton Abbey isn’t just a huge hit in its own country, but offshore as well. Downtown has the record number for most noms for a British series [Editor's note: Downton has a total of 27 noms over 2 years. Upstairs Downstairs had a total of 23 since 1977)...(Downton resonates in America) because we start off with a familiar recognizable British drama with Edwardian and class system elements; things that are recognizable in literature. We created a modern show with fast storytelling, myriad characters; but going into a much loved traditional genre". -- executive producer Gareth Neame

Homeland
"If you look at all the shows in the drama series category, all of them circle around controversial subject matter. It makes for the best drama...The bipolarity of Claire Danes' character didn't come to the front until later drafts. When she was first conceived, she was a reckless pariah inside the agency. We pathologised her behavior...which poised the question of whether she was reliable or not. They were two fundamental questions that ran through the season" -- writer/executive producer Alex Gansa. "All the dramas exercise remarkable restraint, everything feels organic. Mad Men and Breaking Bad are brave and Alex and I are thrilled to be in their company...We were afraid when we first starting doing Homeland that there would be terrorist fatigue among the audience. What was interesting to me was that so much had happened, we were in Afghanistan and Iraq, a lot of our soldiers had been killed and traumatized". -- writer/executive producer Howard Gordon

Mad Men
"I am always amazed and surprised by our Emmy nominations. You don't expect them and you never know what's going to happen. This is particularly exciting because at five seasons, we're the longest running show in the drama category...In terms of the content this season, I felt great about it. We have hundreds of people who work for us and we did our best...Today we take stock in what a ride it has been...I learned about the nominations from watching TV, I didn't sleep that well. It's very suspenseful." In years past the TV Academy has overlooked Mad Men's actors and actresses in terms of final wins. Weiner explained, " There's a little story for every category in terms of why it happens each year. It's a mystery to me. I take some of it personally...There's a degree of difficulty in terms of what these actors are doing; there's a depth to their performances. I'm not in the actors' peer (Emmy voting) group; in some ways they're more subjective. Jon Hamm is a wonderful actor with a unique style. Jessica Pare is incredible. This was one of John Slattery's best season and I don't know why they (the TV Academy) overlooked him".--creator, executive producer, writer, director Matthew Weiner

Miniseries Or Movie
American Horror Story
“I was really thrilled with American Horror Story's nominations today in the technical and acting categories -- it was really a great morning. The horror genre historically and with rare exception has done well and I was thrilled that voters really got what we were doing...The heart of the show is about social horrors which we're exploring and delving into through a horror lense. People got that. It wasn't just a slasher project, we had aspirations to make something else. Everyone loved that we were shifting the spotlight and delving deeper, particularly with the Columbine-like plot. I was always inspired by such movies as The Exorcist and Silence Of The Lambs. They were horror films, but they had deeper metaphors." [Commenting on his other series, Glee, receiving only one nomination]: “Of course, I try to see the glass as half full.” — co-creator Ryan Murphy

Hatfields & McCoys
“I am over the moon. I’m going completely nuts. I was overwhelmed and not really prepared (for this show) in the success with the ratings, and taken back that it was so well-received and to have all our peers recognized; all of my department heads. … When you distill the essence of this story, it’s about two families, about friends and lovers. It’s similar to the drama seen with the Montagues and Capulets, the IRA and the Protestants — it’s a tragic tale of mankind, but told personally: It’s a combination of a true story, our sense of betrayal and our ability to forgive and not forgive. These are the kernels we can relate to as human beings. That’s the story that engaged everyone. I had no idea that It would spark the ratings numbers it did. But when I look at the accomplishments of my cast and the department heads who took this on for so little money, under difficult circumstances, at a distant shooting location; all because they believed in the product and Kevin Costner, it was always about ‘How do we get the best out of the day’? ” — executive producer Leslie Greif

“It’s wonderful when Nielsen rewards you, but when your peers at the TV Academy do, it’s a nice end to a very sweet story. It’s rewarding for everyone in the whole cast, Kevin Costner, Bill Paxton, Leslie Greif and the whole cast; it’s overwhelming. We worked with Leslie for a couple of years on the conceit of the project. We see this as the iconic American family…I wouldn’t call it a western. It wasn’t about cowboys or frontier land. It was about the heartache and pain that these families put themselves through”. — executive producer/president and general manager HISTORY/Lifetime Networks Nancy Dubuc Read More »