Emmy Awards 2015: Game of Thrones, Veep named top shows

Reg E. Cathey, who plays Freddy Hayes in the series, won the award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.

Veep won Outstanding Comedy at the 2015 Emmy Awards.

The outstanding actress award went to Viola Davis for “How to Get Away With Murder”. “You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there”, she said.

He warmly thanked anyone who stopped to take his photo.

Samberg then did a brief monologue in which he cracked jokes about diversity in Hollywood, Paula Deen on “Dancing With the Stars” and – perhaps inevitably – presidential candidate Donald Trump. “It’s getting trickier and trickier to satirize this stuff”.

“But I can’t seem to get there no how”.

Jon Hamm won lead actor for his role as Don Draper in Mad Men after he was previously nominated seven times.

He opted to avoid the stairs and clamber awkwardly onstage, much to the amusement of Tiny Fey, who was handing out the award. “It was a very odd experience”, he said.

Host Andy Samberg was quick to acknowledge that many people would be upset about the spoilers.

He opened the show with a clip that poked fun at TV’s overabundance of buzzed-about shows and later appeared in a video spoofing the final episode of “Mad Men“, singing, “I’d like to give the world an Emmy”. The star of HBO’s “Veep” won the best actress award in comedy for the fourth straight year.

She burst into tears as she thanked the show’s creator, Jenji Kohan, for casting her in the role. “I thank you for putting belief back in my heart”.

“The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” won three Emmys, for variety talk series, writing for a variety series and as well as Chuck O’Neill for directing.

He later compared notes with his replacement, South African comedian Trevor Noah.

Entertainment Weekly’s editor in chief Henry Goldblatt observed that “the last time the same network won best comedy and best drama at Emmys was NBC in 2002″, when “The West Wing” and “Friends” both won.

Backstage, she told reporters what was going through her mind as she accepted the prize: “I just thought, I can’t wait to hug my sister, which is exactly the first thing I did”.

“We are all here because of the power of a story well told. I’m gonna black out”.

Allison Janney found a blast of air conditioning when she came backstage after winning for supporting actress in the comedy series “Mom”.

“This is just absolutely fantastic “, she said. “Thanks to my doctors and my handsome wife, I’m here standing on my own two feet”.

Transparent, Amazon’s dark comedy became the first series created by an Internet streaming service to win an Emmy in a major category.

But the night’s biggest victor may have been “Olive Kittredge”, the acclaimed HBO miniseries about 25 years in the life of an acerbic, retired schoolteacher in a seemingly placid Maine town.

Jeffrey Tambor won the Emmy for best actor in a comedy series, one of the top prizes in television, for his portrayal of a transgender woman whose family is coming to terms with the transition. “Playing a character for that long is a blessing and curse”, he said.

The show’s producers thanked HBO for “believing in dragons”.

They handed out dozens of trophies at this year’s Emmy Awards, but the real victor was HBO.

“Olive Kitteridge” dominated the limited series categories, taking home eight Emmys, with Bill Murray and Frances McDormand winning for their roles.

Tracy Morgan, who suffered bad injuries more than a year ago in a auto crash, arrived to present the best drama series Emmy.

“We all face that disgusting , terrible blank page – but we’re here and we solved our scripts”. “Fox NFL Sunday” is broadcasting from the red carpet and the Philadelphia Eagles-Dallas Cowboys telecast precedes the awards.