Last night, the 73rd Emmy Awards were held with Cedric the Entertainer hosting on CBS. While most of the big Emmy news for Chicago will be pointed (deservedly so) toward Ted Lasso’s Jason Sudeikis’, who studied here at the IO Theater, Second City and Anonymous, and co-creator, co-star and Chicagoan Brendan Hunt’s wins, another Chicago-based and produced series can’t be overlooked that was also a winner, Lovecraft Country.
The supernatural HBO series, which was filmed at Cinespace Studios, took home two gold statuettes for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (Courtney B. Vance) and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour). Sadly, there was no recognition for the excellent Michael K. Williams who died recently.
In case you missed our coverage or didn’t watch, Lovecraft Country is an entertaining and shocking supernatural horror story that leaps through time developed by Misha Green from the 2016 novel by Matt Ruff. There are heroes, monsters and magic.
Vance was awarded for his portrayal of George Freeman in the series which aired earlier this year. It was Vance’s second nomination and second win.
In his acceptance speech last Sunday at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, he paid tribute to his late friend and Lovecraft Country costar, Williams, and spoke about him backstage to Black Enterprise after the show.
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“I love him. We recently met for the first time. I’ve been following him, and he’s been following me for a number of years. We met at an event in New Jersey about two-and-a-half, three years ago. We were just overjoyed to share the same dais and couldn’t wait to get offstage so we could hug and just say how much we loved each other. And the idea that shortly after that, we would be playing brothers in Lovecraft Country. This is his. We were brothers. I died in the series, and we said goodbye to each other, so it’s just too painful to really think about, so I just honor him everywhere and every way I can.”
While the series received 18 Emmy nominations, including the Black performers nominated for Emmys in both the lead actor and lead actress categories, Lovecraft Country was canceled. Vance expressed his disappointment about the decision.
“I’m very, very happy and at the same time, I’m very sad because of Michael and because we’re not still doing the show. In my mind and in my spirit, it doesn’t make sense… I’m sad for audiences that we don’t get to see like Game of Thrones; we don’t get to see seven years, eight years of following these characters and learning more about that time period and learning about our people and their struggles. And where Misha’s mind is going to go so, that’s very painful for me as an actor.”
Lovecraft Country is currently streaming on HBO Max. And deserves your attention.
Colin Costello is the West Coast Editor of Reel 360. Contact him at colin@reel360.com or follow him on Twitter at @colinthewriter1
