‘Severance,' ‘The Penguin' lead nominations for TV's Emmy awards

Daily Maverick

15-07-2025

'Severance' racks up 27 Emmy nods
Winners will be announced in September
HBO and HBO Max lead all networks
By Lisa Richwine
'Severance' received a leading 27 nominations and was nominated for the top prize of best drama alongside Star Wars series 'Andor,' 'The Pitt,' 'The White Lotus' and others.
'The Penguin,' set in the DC Comics universe and starring Colin Farrell, earned 24 nominations and will compete for best limited series against Netflix NFLX.O hit 'Adolescence,' among others.
Hollywood satire 'The Studio,' an Apple TV+ show starring Seth Rogen as a nervous film executive, and HBO's 'The White Lotus,' about murder and misbehavior at a luxury resort, received 23 each.
Comedy nominees included defending champion 'Hacks,' previous winner 'The Bear,' 'Nobody Wants This' and 'Abbott Elementary.'
The 23 nominations for 'The Studio' tied the record for a comedy in a single season, set last year by Chicago restaurant tale 'The Bear.'
Winners of the Emmys will be announced at a red-carpet ceremony broadcast live on CBS PARA.O on Sept. 14. Comedian Nate Bargatze will host.
The television industry is undergoing a contraction as media companies curtail the sky-high spending they shelled out to compete in the shift to streaming platforms led by Netflix.
Longtime Emmy favorite HBO and the HBO Max streaming service topped all programmers with 142 nominations, a record for the network.
Walt Disney DIS.N collected 136 nominations, including six for ABC's 'Abbott Elementary,' one of the few broadcast shows in the Emmy mix. 'Andor,' on Disney+, received 14.
Netflix garnered 120 nods and Apple scored 81, its highest total since launching its streaming service in 2019.
'Severance' tells the story of office workers who undergo a procedure to make them forget their home life at work, and vice versa.
'It's distinctive in every way – in terms of its storytelling, in terms of style, in terms of its directing, its tone,' said Matt Cherniss, head of programming at Apple TV+.
'Every aspect of that show just resonates and the audience notices,' he added.
Noah Wyle received his first Emmy nomination since 1999 for his role as an emergency room doctor on 'The Pitt.' Wyle was nominated five times for his time on 'ER' but never won.
Harrison Ford, 83, earned his first Emmy nod, for playing a grumpy therapist on 'Shrinking.'
Ron Howard, the former 'Happy Days' star turned Oscar-winning director, also landed his first acting nomination, a guest actor nod for playing himself on 'The Studio.'
Other notable acting nominees included Farrell, 'The Bear' actors Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, 'Hacks' stars Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, Kathy Bates for 'Matlock' and Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey for 'The Last of Us.'
Eight 'White Lotus' actors were recognized.
'This is a bunch of cherries on the icing on the cake that was the gift of playing such a tortured and lonely human,' said Jason Isaacs, who portrayed a father facing financial ruin on the show.
Beyonce also made the Emmys list. Her halftime performance during a National Football League game on Netflix was nominated for best live variety special.
Winners will be chosen by the roughly 26,000 performers, directors, producers and other members of the Television Academy.