The British television invasion continued at this year’s Emmy Awards, with half the prizes given to Brits or Brit-produced shows.
The 2019 ceremony took place on Sunday 22 September at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag scooping four wins.
Waller-Bridge won for Writing in a Comedy Series, Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, and Outstanding Comedy Series, prompting her to begin her third acceptance speech with: “This is just getting ridiculous.”
Fleabag also picked up the award for Best Directing for a Comedy, which was given to Harry Bradbeer. Ben Whishaw won Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for A Very English Scandal, in which he starred opposite Hugh Grant, while Jodie Comer apologised to her Liverpudlian parents during her acceptance speech for Killing Eve, because she “didn’t think it was my time” to win Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
Click through the gallery to see the best-dressed at this year’s Emmy Awards
John Oliver won his fourth consecutive Emmy for Best Variety Series for Last Week Tonight, while Charlie Brooker’s choose-your-own-adventure Black Mirror: Bandersnatch won Best Television Movie – the show’s third after wins for episodes “San Junipero” and “USS Callister”.
Brooker picked up the trophy alongside executive producer Annabel Jones, and made a joke of the fact that they had beaten Brexit: The Uncivil War starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
“Being British, I think we were pre-conditioned for 52 per cent of the Academy to vote for Brexit,” he quipped, sparking laughter from the audience.
British author, screenwriter and producer Jesse Armstrong took home the Best Drama Writing prize for HBO’s critically adored Succession.
Game of Thrones, meanwhile, won the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy for the fourth and last time, as the fantasy show wrapped up this year with an eighth and final season. The show was nominated for 32 awards – the most for a single season of TV in Emmys history – and had already won 10 Creative Arts Emmys in the previous week.
Peter Dinklage won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama. While the rest of the show’s stars had scored a number of nominations in the supporting categories, they didn’t take home those trophies.
Dinklage was bleeped out during his speech, which he used to pay tribute to some of the best “motherf***ing people I’ve ever met”.
“I count myself so fortunate to be a member of a community that is nothing but all about tolerance and diversity, because no other place could I be standing on a stage like this,” he said.
Other notable winners included Billy Porter, who won Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his work on Pose, and Michelle Williams, who took Lead Actress in a Limited Series for Fosse/ Verdon. Williams used her speech to make a moving statement about equal pay, commenting: “Next time a woman tells you what she needs in order to do her job, believe her”.
Praising her bosses for helping her “get in touch with [her] own inherent value”, she said: “I see this as an acknowledgement of what is possible when a woman is trusted to discern her own needs, feels safe enough to voice them, and respected enough that they’ll be heard.”
“When I asked for more dance classes, I heard yes,” she continued. “More voice lessons, yes. All these things, they required effort, and they cost more money but my bosses never presumed to know better than I did.
“They understood that when you put value into a person, it empowers that person to get in touch with their own inherent value. So the next time a woman, especially a woman of colour – because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white, male counterpart – tells you what she needs to do in order to do her job, believe her. One day she might stand in front of you and say thank you for allowing her to succeed because of her workplace environment and not in spite of it.”
Chernobyl also won in the Writing and Directing for a Limited Series category. See the full list of winners here.
For the first time since 2003, there was no presenter, but the list of guest presenters included Tim Allen, James Corden, Kerry Washington, Regina King, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bill Hader, Ben Stiller, Catherine O’Hara and Marisa Tomei.
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