2021 Emmy Roundtable Portraits

“Back in the day, even 10 years ago, you could make a comedy that was really farcical and really silly and people didn’t need to relate to it. But today if your comedy is not relatable in some sort of way, people don’t want it.”

Robin Thede (“A Black Lady Sketch Show”), on creating topical comedy

“I wasn’t as in tune or didn’t want to be as in tune with the idea that I have a lot of shame about being a woman. And that’s just internalized. So we deal with that in the show.”

Anna Konkle (“Pen15”), on making creative and daring comedy

“The relationship between Black men and America is one of abuse, betrayal, disheartened love and no appreciation. It’s [Sam] having to come to grips with the abusive relationship that he has with the country that he lives in and then having to stand up and fight for that country.”

Anthony Mackie (“The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”), on his character being racially profiled

“When I was a kid, television just entertained you for as long as they could. The stories didn’t have a beginning, middle and an end. They didn’t have a theme, they didn’t have a thesis, they didn’t have metaphor.”

Ethan Hawke (“The Good Lord Bird”), on television then and now.

“You look at these period pieces, you look at the books and they are lily, lily white. Injecting race into this world was something that I really wanted to do, and I became a little obsessed as far as cracking that. Once I knew I was going to have this Black queen in this world, everything else started to fall into place.”

Chris Van Dusen (“Bridgerton”), on writing people of color into history

“The word ‘genius’ is most often used historically to note white European. So to really look at the life of a Black American musician, woman, mother, brilliant singer through the lens of genius, our choices were made from that.”

Suzan-Lori Parks (“Genius: Aretha), on shaping the limited series’ narrative

“Comedy is presented and thought-out. If there’s any kind of gap or questioning, it kind of throws the audience off.”

Kenan Thompson (“Kenan” and “SNL”), on comedy and spontaneity

“I felt like our Zoom room became a kind of consciousness-raising. It was a place where I could come together with some of the minds that I most respect and talk about what was happening and translate it into story.”

Alena Smith (“Dickinson”), on running a writers’ room over Zoom

“It was about timing more than anything else. My own timing, where I was in my life at a certain moment. I knew once I planted the seed 11 years ago, I wanted to see how it sprouted, how well it transformed and what it translated into. So it was about preparing myself in my own sort of maturity during that time.

Steve McQueen (“Small Axe”) on letting his five-film project unfold over time

“People just have this endless fascination but also so much feeling towards her. I think that’s something that people weirdly love about ‘The Crown’; it turns these people who feel very removed from our everyday life into human people with human stories.”

Emma Corrin (“The Crown”), on the responsibility of portraying Princess Diana

“I just don’t want to take the wrong lessons away from last year. The last year was a mother of invention, but we should look at it that way.”

Bruce Miller (“The Handmaid’s Tale”), on what excites and what worries him about the entertainment industry

“What I have found so wonderful about coming back right now is the sense of community. Just having our crew chuckle at something, it makes you feel, ‘Oh, thank God, we can still do this.’ People still want to laugh.”

Jane Krakowski (“Dickinson”), on returning to work

“It was strange to pretend that everything was sort of back to normal in front of the camera, right? But also kind of nice?”

Michiel Huisman (“The Flight Attendant”), on returning to work after pandemic closures

“I was in the pet store buying crickets for my sons and my daughters. They got geckos for Christmas. So I’m standing there, holding the bag of crickets, and it’s like I heard my ancestors say, ‘You’ve been around white people too much.’”

Wanda Sykes (“The Upshaws”), on where she finds inspiration for comedy

“We make this show for people who don’t have a voice and for people who feel like they can’t speak up about what’s happening to them, whether that’s on a small scale or a large scale, whether it’s about race or gender, sexual identity.”

Elisabeth Moss (“The Handmaid’s Tale”), on responses to the show

“And we just got pulled in different directions, but we kept coming back to this idea. I think you can know something is worth pursuing if you’re hanging out and you keep coming back to this idea, that’s kind of a sign that there’s something there.”

Jen Statsky (“Hacks”), on not giving up on the idea for the show

“I find it more useful to find real people that one knows and use them as models rather than some academic model. So I was lucky to have Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, narcissistic sociopaths, on my TV screen.”

Hugh Grant (“The Undoing”), on finding inspiration for his character

“There was a time in which I just told my agents, ‘Do not send me a horror film, because I know I’m just going to be the Black chick that dies on page 37.’ With ‘Lovecraft Country,’ it was so exciting for me to be a part of a counter-narrative to such a dominant narrative.”

Jurnee Smollett (“Lovecraft Country”), on breaking down genre barriers