2008 Emmy Press Room

I'm still feeling the afterglow today from my time in the Emmy press room, where so many happy stars came to talk about their big awards. There are a bunch of tidbits I didn't get to share with you live, so to see what Bryan Cranston, Paul Giamatti, and Laura Linney had to say, read on!

• Bryan Cranston was maybe the happiest guy on Earth when he came back to the press room, clutching his Emmy in one hand and the envelope with his name on it in the other. "I thought I was the dark horse, I really did," he said. "I thought I should have been in the back of the pack. Breaking Bad only had seven episodes to air. I didn't know if that would be enough sampling for the academy to take a look. I'm shocked and wonderfully surprised."
• Cranston also talked a little about his bald head, a look he's currently sporting for the role as his character is going through chemotherapy (he's also lost 17 pounds, he said). Immersing himself in a character that way, he said, is "something actors dream about." That said, he compared baldness to having a skull made of velcro. "There are all kinds of things that are sticking to my head — fuzz, a jujube . . . "
• Someone asked Jon Hamm about his reaction to his success and whether he was getting either a) shy or b) a big head. After laughing that both of those things were true, Hamm got serious: "I still feel like I'm in 10th grade and no one will talk to me at lunch," he said.
• Laura Linney said she's still got a huge stack of history books by her bed, long after her work on John Adams was done. "I had a real understanding of how people get addicted to American history," she said, because each person leads to another. "I'm still reading, actually."

To hear from Jerry Bruckheimer, Jeff Probst, and January Jones, just read more

The cast of Mad Men was completely delightful in the Emmy press room, where they were celebrating their Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series — the first basic cable series to win that award. Several cast members sipped champagne, and Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss snapped iPhone pictures of each other.

Series creator Matthew Weiner called the win gratifying for a show that "resonates with the human condition," and he said it was something of a victory for every writer who's ever toiled away on a TV script at a library or a Starbucks. But a lot of the questions were for Hamm, whose Don Draper has been the heart of the show from the start.

"It is a career-changing role," Hamm said. "It is the thing that you dream about. You dream about getting to play something this rich and layered and funny and sad and beautiful all at the same time. Until recently, it hardly ever happens on television."

Pretending to smoke a cigarette while swilling champagne, Hamm acknowledged that "it is fun to dress up and smoke and drink in fakeland." But no worries — he said he doesn't behave like Don behaves in daily life.

Hamm also heaped praise on Bryan Cranston, who took home the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Breaking Bad, so to hear about that, just read more

The cast of 30 Rock just popped up in the press room with a whole bevy of Emmys: one for Alec Baldwin (who is, yes, bowing down to Tina Fey in this image), two for Tina Fey, and still another one for the show as a whole.

Fey's two personal Emmys "look identical," she joked, but Alec Baldwin apparently told her that the acting award should mean that "I can stop apologizing for being an actor and being on the show. He wants me to stop apologizing the whole time!"

As for the Emmy for the show? "That one really belongs to everyone," she said, "so I don't like it as much." Ha!

There seemed to be a sort of mutual admiration society going on between Fey and Baldwin, with her crediting his acting abilities and him thanking her for coming up with the concept of the show. "The show was created by one woman," he said. "This is Tina's idea, this is Tina's thing, she is the head writer and is there every day, even the days she's not shooting as an actress. . . . The interesting thing is to me, there are a lot of good shows on the air right now. There's a lot of good comedy. I think we have the best writers, which I think says a lot right now."

As for what Baldwin thought of his own personal award, read more

Glenn Close gave one of my favorite acceptance speeches of the night when she won her Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, and she was just as gracious a few moments ago in the press room.

"It really is the ride of my career," she said of playing Patty Hewes on Damages. "To have this magnificent part that is as good as any part you would find in a feature film, and to develop her and have it evolve with such an amazing ensemble of writers . . . I'm thrilled."

Close also talked about the "TV Sisterhood of Divas," the "club" she mentioned in her speech with Helen Mirren and Dame Judi Dench. "After my first movie, I was told by my first agent when I was offered something that it would actually be detrimental to my career if I did something in television, and I just couldn't figure it out," she said. "The English do it, why can't we? I really have for all those years thought of actresses like Helen Mirren and Judi Dench who have done TV series and all kinds of television movies and theater and great — as we know — roles in film. I think the most important thing is go where there's great material because that's how you grow as an artist and that's how you're challenged."

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John Adams writer/producer Kirk Ellis just came by the Emmy press room to talk about what happened when his acceptance speech got cut off in favor of a reality show award promo.

"As soon as I got up there and opened my mouth, they were already flashing the 'wrap it up'," he said. "I find it really interesting that we can have 30 minutes of the show devoted to reality show hosts, when the people who actually create the work don't get enough time to talk." (He got a lot of applause in the press room for that line.)

As for what he was going to say? Ellis wanted to talk about how in the time of John Adams, the word was primary. "We have to listen to a lot of bloviating from pundits in this silly election season about whether words matter and rhetoric matters," he said. "Of course words matter. They always matter. We have to listen to what they have to say."

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Nothing like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to liven up the Emmy press room! The two were just back here in the press room with their whole crews to talk about their awards for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Program (Colbert) and Outstanding Variety, Music, or Comedy Series (Stewart).

"It's always great to come out here and win," Stewart quipped. "It's a long flight." He had nothing but kind words for his protege, Colbert, whose show beat Stewart's in the writing category.

Colbert, meanwhile, wasn't quite so kind to Stewart: "I've been gunning for him for years," he said. "Even when I worked for him, I did not wish him well."

Colbert was (probably unsurprisingly) a total goofball on stage, running around and clinking Emmys with his whole writing staff. As for insulting the Emmy chairman a couple of nights ago on his show? "I believe calling John Schaffner a world-class a-hole is what got me this award," he said.

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Two of tonight's Emmy winners, Jean Smart and Zeljko Ivanek, stopped by the press room a few minutes ago. Ivanek's stay was pretty short, but he said he was "incredibly pleased" that his win will get Damages out there. "It's a little tougher for a cable show to get the same traction and same attention," he said.

Meanwhile, Smart praised Christina Applegate for setting the tone on the Samantha Who? set that enabled her to win. "I've never seen an actress so beloved by cast and crew as Christina," she said. "She's just a pro. She's fun. She's not demanding. She never makes a big deal out of anything. I love her."

This is Smart's third Emmy (she won two for her guest role on Frasier several years back). Looking back on her career, she said she was glad to have gotten to play so many different roles. "I've never been pigeonholed," she said. "I've never been typecast." Smart also had some interesting things to say about women's roles in Hollywood, so to read about that, just read more

Jeremy Piven just stopped by the press room to talk about the Emmy he won for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for Entourage. This was Piven's third win in the category, and he said this one was "more shocking than the first two."

"I do believe the show is getting better," Piven said. "I think that's the brilliance of HBO, is that they stick with their shows, and this show has come to find its voice in the fifth season. The characters are getting more intricate . . . It's just a blessing to get to play this character."

And he said he doesn't see Entourage winding down anytime soon: "When I first heard of the show I thought, 'This premise is so fertile' — I mean, we all have jobs because people are curious about the backstage life of entertainment, of Hollywood. I was on the Larry Sanders Show for a few years. That show could still be running. I think this show could continue on — we have so many brilliant actors in this town."

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